Crack the tartan spine, flick through, you'll find
at least as many terms for slut and slattern
as there are for crops and farming implements:
clort and clatch, latheron, soss and slodge explained
v
as 'lumpish sloven', 'plate-licker', 'a strumpet',
'a heavy drab', 'a slobbering woman of low morals';
so many words that I picture her wide-thighed
in a loft of the barn and her wild hair's in the straw,
ill-defined, and if I can't see her eyes, how can I
find them in the throngs and queues: the herring girls
newsing on the quay head, high-haired bathing belles
in lines at Largs, the lunch-hour temps on Rose Street.
