The sunny slid down the great blue gullet.
Not a smooth slide,
more choke than swallow,
but not a fatal gag,
rather like a bad joke
botched by an amateur comedian,
stammered and stuttered on open-mic-night
down the street at the local bar.

Never-the-less,

we watched in hypnotic fascination
until the fish was gone.

The heron had fished the pond,
a hungry hunter in his private preserve
and truth be told,
we were not quite unwitting accomplice
to the deed.
We were innocents feeding turtles
with store-bought food,
attracting a family of Box
and a school of Sunny.

Into a shallow pool they swam,
following the floating food
near the safe, deadly shore.

Then the Heron came,
stalking in the muck on twiggy legs,
all focused yellow eyes,
patient as Lucifer on a soul hunt,
playing a variant of the old sport,
“spearing the sunny’s in the shallows.”

But
no one forced the sunny into that
aquatic killing field.
He might have finned away,

but for gluttony…

So the heron had his day.
Fortune had her say.
The sunny became the prey.

On he swam with a death wish.
Fulfilling his fate,
becoming the fish
the heron ate.