Outside a cottage, at the forest edge,
two predators watch people turn on lights
and set an oaken table. A terrine
of something smelling good is ladled out
and, after holding hands and praying, people take
up spoons and, as they say themselves, fall to.

The wolf looks on, disgusted how they slurp.
‘Soup eaters! Aaargh! They make my stomach turn.
Too-little mouths too often quickly open.
Too-nervous forelegs: twisty toes hold fast
to spoons glopflicking drops of moisture up
and into smacking mouths. This will not do.’

‘You are raving,’ says the Raven. ‘Get a grip.
Your ravening ways seem rare in turn to them.
Your mouth transects your face and you’ve no chin,
though that is good, describing me as well.
I hate soup eaters too. No one could think
that they’re beautiful; I sicken seeing knees…’

‘… that bend the wrong way!’ Wolf ends, with a grin.
He and the Raven glance at their own legs
and thank their separate gods they are designed
not monkey-like with legs that bend to aft.
‘I can think you are my equal if I try,’
says Raven, ‘Can you ever learn to fly?’