The Sloth

Where it once met feast and leisure,

its nails now bore deep to anchor a carcass swinging through summer blossoms.

Though passerby assume tranquility,

the beast is dead;

hung by its own respite in the treetops.

A vine crept up from the root to invade the arbor,

and discerned a creature with no vigor,

wasting its post and vantage point:

At rest, with the world was below and beyond it.  

And so the vine crept,

keen for a shift in the sloth’s behavior.

And once sighted, it wrapped itself about its neck,

to make gallows of its home.

And there it hung, limp and bloated.

Though passerby assumed tranquility.