I have been here once before – It was a long time ago, I don't remember when.
But as my father handed me the axe-head
Images exploded in my brain.

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.

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.

When Harry went away
he stole a part of Mum.
No-one warned us. 
No-one said.
We looked and looked for ages – 

It's New Year, 1979, at Funderland in the RDS in Dublin. 
In the cold calculation of the January air, a young girl tries to talk 

Once everything was big
and you were small,
but year after year your shadow 
crept up the wall 
and you grew tall.

Nobody can see my name on me.
My name is inside
and all over me, unseen
like other people also keep it.
Isn't my name magical?

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

Save me, it hissed. A secret must hide.
So I opened my bag and it slithered inside.