Tigers and Worms, Revisited

Once there was a place a goddess made

from scratch, for you,

lined with tenderness and lust,

lapses and silences come and gone.

You came with restlessness,

with words with hands and restlessness.

And you went with fear and coldness,

restlessness in the eyes.

'Nature abhors a vacuum,'

physics says.

The goddess says 'Fill yours with want and trouble.'

The space did not expand. Got used up

by restlessness, I guess.

Like black holes, dense with expectation

it grew smaller instead.

You liked that place before it got crowded

and soiled by the tigers and worms of my dreams.

Curious, how I stayed there,

a tiny voiceless hunter, mouthing

'Who screwed the lid so tight, who will let me loose?'

Don't answer that, I wasn't asking.

Now it is the time I, the goddess, let the tiger out,

and let the worms work it out.