After an outpost beech or two,
that march now backs
against suburbia’s frontier attack
from the retail park. Bales
brick up, garrison defences
at its built approach. How long

can any cut-back field hold out
gold in the face of proffered
silver? Across the way a yellow sign
offers one Poplar Avenue – pre-occupied
behind tidy walls, placed
where no poplars ever rooted.

Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in Gutter, Antiphon and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA. Her pamphlet Handfast (2016, with Ruth Aylett, published by Mother’s Milk Books) explores family experiences – Aylett’s of dementia and McDonough’s of autism.