Rats

By Alison Prince

You want to be a fat cat, want to do the deals?
Fix the odds, pull the birds, eat expensive meals
that someone else has paid for? Then listen here, my son,
you’ll need to do some studying and find out how it’s done.
Forget the university, you’ll get no help from that –
you want the proper low-down? Then you’ve got to ask a rat.
Your rat has got the attitude. He understands the skill,
lines the job up nice and quiet, moves in for the kill.
He’s good at business, naturally. His sharp-nailed little paws
are into every document, deleting any clause
that doesn’t suit his purposes. He’s got a lot of friends
and uses them with ruthless charm to further his own ends.
He has it off with all their wives, denies it with a smile.
Accused, he sues – and blow me down, he’s made another pile.
And should we reap the whirlwind, boy, there’s no need to despair.
Amid the rubble and the filth, the rat will still be there.

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