BECOMING

Pumpkin plants emerge, unbend dancer's necks,
pull weighted leaves out from cased beginnings
in potted earth nursery earth.

Already, they excite, incline towards
a window's light, prise apart palms,
praying to move headlong into a grand world.

Too big, too bold, too very everything, to do
all they want, these strapping toddlers assert
huge life. I only watch. Entranced.

Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in Magma, Causeway, Gutter and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA. She swims in and forages near the Firth of Tay year round. Her pamphlet Lamping for pickled fish is published by 4Word.