Permitted Exercise, a poem by Linda McKenna

The ground is between developments;
the builder waiting for money to clear,
water courses to be identified. By the time
the potatoes flower the tiny garden might
already be marked for clearing, the cock
and his harem evicted. Or maybe the money
never clears, the water courses prove
intractable. Perhaps this is all we can do;
plant doll’s gardens in poor soil, owned
by someone else, hope they cost its clearing
as a bad investment, let us go on harvesting.