The phrase “sinks in its claws” raises a further question: what does it mean to attribute claws to death? Death has no literal claws; the expression establishes an imagined predatory scene.
The imaginative attribution is termed takhyīliyyah in an influential analysis. Makniyyah concerns the unexpressed comparison to the vehicle; takhyīliyyah concerns the imagined quality attributed to the subject.
Distinguishing these levels shows how a single line can combine a concealed resemblance with an imaginative marker of the absent image.