I saw a bride splendid in white garments
I saw a woman with one hundred children 
The children plump and firm within her arms,

At swimming once,
I went to turn from front to back
and just kept turning,
just kept turning,
turning over,
over and over,
till the swimming teacher said,

Dada taught me cards.
Sitting in his suit of pants and vest.
A fistful of joker-red hair strewn across his brow.
His big belly like a cannon ball.

Five children clasping mittens
could not hug the entire trunk.
Whole hands could hide in the folds of its bark.
James, the tallest boy in class,
could sit on a root,

Dada has stories from Calcutta
wrapped up in his big belly.
When he belched they would unravel.

Billy chased me round the playground
with hands full of fists

Billy yelled at me across the football pitch
with a mouth full of stings.

The biggest berries are in the centre
of a tunnel of thorny bushes.
A shark gaping wide,
promising not to nip.

I am in a forest;
My brothers will never find me here.
Over my head is a green umbrella;
I feel the earth under my bare feet.

When they were young,
She kept wicket for her brothers,
They batted,
Bowled,
Padded up
And ratcheted up the score.
She crouched behind the stumps
Keeping wicket.

I told a whopper, a fib, a lie.
Slipped out of my mouth. It was slimy, sly.