The Phantasmagorical Savagery of Milkweed Kleptopharmacophagy

Do you recall your fascination
With monarch butterflies as a child?
Do you remember the first time you saw

Footage of dogs hanging from lampposts,
Inscrutable signs around their necks?
Have you ever linked them in your thoughts?

Now you have. Certain species carry
Toxins essential to survival,
For which they then prey on each other

To concentrate supplies in themselves.
Milkweed butterflies will go after
Milkweed caterpillars for the juice,

A rare form of cannibalism
Christened kleptopharmacophagy,
Recently, and making a small splash

In the news. Also of note, the death
In custody at a ripe old age
Of Abimael Guzman, who sought

To drain the toxins of government
To cannibalize a government
And immunize a revolution

That would raise another government
Presupplied with toxins of its own.
But his revolution was gobbled

Before it could complete its gobbling.
This cannibalism has no name
Yet from the species practicing it.