وإذا المنية أنشبت أظفارها، ألفيت كل تميمة لا تنفع
When death sinks in its claws, you will find every amulet of no avail.
The verse depicts death as a force that grips its prey with claws. It does not openly say “death is a predator”; instead, it assigns to death a characteristic belonging to the predator. This conveys fear, inevitability, and human helplessness more forcefully than a plain statement.
The verb “anshabat” suggests claws being fixed firmly into something. The second half states the inability of an amulet to protect once that grip takes hold. The poem therefore illustrates the imaginative force created by the implicit comparison and its attribute.