A man's boots with a woman in them
Clatter across the floor. A hand
Long careless of the lives it kills
Comes down and thwacks on newspapers
A long black fish with bloody gills.
The kettle's at her singsong – minor
Prophetess in her sooty cave.
A kitten climbs the bundled net
On the bench and, curled up like a cowpat,
Purrs on the Stornoway Gazette.
The six hooks of a Mackerel Dandy
Climb their thin rope – an exclamation
By the curled question of a gaff.
Three rubber eels cling like a crayfish
On top of an old photograph.
Peats fur themselves in gray. The door
Bursts open, chairs creak, hands reach out
For spectacles, a lamp flares high...
The collie underneath the table
Slumps with a world-rejecting sigh.