False Friends

Before I could take off my shoes my son

rushed up to tell me that one of the crabs

had done something horrible to the other.

He took me by the hand and led me to 

the tank and pointed at the smaller crab

which was missing both claws and most

of its limbs but was still alive, somehow,

condemned to view its own disintegration

with eyes that never close.

The bigger crab shuffled sideways over

the grim debris and the complete husk

of the smaller crab. It must have molted

and while its shell was soft the bigger one

had attacked and tore it limb from limb.

I didn't know crabs do that. In my mind

the two had made a fine pair. My son 

kept saying he'd fed the bigger one that

morning. It shouldn't have been hungry.