Beth McDonough

Riding over the Stannergate Sub-terrestrial

You’re aware that he sups from the Fish Dock?
Not that we’ve seen his jaws, or even his head,
but every so often his double spine shines, splits
pale cobbles, to arch proud from the hard standing.

Sometimes, he tracks past briskly-fixed pot holes.
Dodging fences, he’s unrumbled by artics,
though his length extends for a full mile and a half.
Likely more. Who actually knows his whole story?

He disappears, but he’s never gone. Deft.
Once he nipped my bike’s wheel, to upturn me
by sheds yet to be converted into golf shops
or gentrified by malevolent dentists.

He’s limboing under security wires,
without fear of guard or gull. Giant hogweed just
cracks him up a bit. Some think him cemented in.
Even now. But City Quay tastes his bitumen breath.

Beth McDonough's poetry is widely anthologised and published. She reviews for DURA and elsewhere. Her first solo pamphlet Lamping for pickled fish is published by 4Word and her site-specific poem has recently been installed on the Corbenic Poetry Path. She is currently Makar of the Federation of Writers(Scotland).