What if the next storm hates
his name, blows tired of the south, just
blusters up here?

What if he refills winter
into wee lace spaces, litters
brown paper from beeches?

What if he frisbees slates
slant at that earth, already knife
bright with bulbs?

What if he swings on my neighbour’s tall fir
so hard that it parts
from the roots?

What if he smashes their glass –yes
bams every pane in their precious
conservatory- sit-ootery?

What if he hangs
my line-drying knickers
pink on its thistle-fine finial?

What then? What then? What if
some big wind did all that
and then just
                                                          blew away?

Beth McDonough has a background in Silversmithing and teaching, completing her M.Litt at Dundee University. Recently Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts, she reviews for DURA. Her work is strongly connected to place, particularly the Tay, where she swims. Handfast, (with Ruth Aylett, May 2016) explores autism and dementia.

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.