A cat in the box.
Hold that thought.
Now imagine a goddess
Rising naked
Out of chaos: she divides
Sea from land, pirouettes
Each whitecap,
Rides a randy serpent
Until they’re both spent,
Drops her egg into
Its Father’s tightening coils
Until, split shell flaking
All creation tumbles out.
Hold on to that as well.
Next imagine
sudden light where there was nothing not even emptiness imagine that
spasm echoing splashes coalescing as dust snags dust onto blizzards of new born stone that collide re-coil spinning energy mass a magma globe first day dawning
comets volley down first water rising as rivers quenching first bedrock falling
rain sowing seas where single strands plait the first double helix that uncoils
through millennia into organised
Form: remember that cat in the box?
Well now she’s a mewling kitten
Who’s also an ageing corpse.
Finally, in no more than seventeen
Syllables, distil the above three images
And express as a metaphor.
Kevin McCann
Illustration Nick Victor