'Basking Shark by Norman MacCaig'
Basking Shark To stub an oar on a rock where none should be, To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me. But not too often - though enough. I count as gain 5 That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain, That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain. He displaced more than water. He shoggled me Centuries back - this decadent townee Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree. 10 Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling, Emerging from the slime of everything. ...