Basking Shark

'To stub an oar on a rock'

'To have it rise with a slounge'

'that happened once (too often) to me'

'But not too often - though enough'

'That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain'

'He displaced more than water'

'He shoggled me centuries back - this decadent townee'

'Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring is all the clearer'

'So who's the monster?'

Aunt Julia

'Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic very loud and very fast. I could not answer her - I could not understand her.

'paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel'

'marvellously out of the air'

'She was buckets and water flouncing into them. She was winds pouring wetly round house-ends. She was brown eggs, black skirts and a keeper of threepennybits in a teapot

'She lay silenced in the absolute black of a sandy grave'

'with a seagull's voice'

'and getting angry, getting angry with so many questions unanswered'