When we go the ivy will slam a fist
through the double glazing, push its fingers in
between the bricks. It will sling ropes
around our walls and pull them down

like the landlord always feared. This time
next year the whole house will be a hive
of late September bees, susurrating
like a broken TV. The flowerbeds are dead

and all that’s left are these, bunched,
pale green, the end of the season.
The honey they make is dark as the mornings,
bitter as the frost that is waiting.

 

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Suzannah Evans lives in Sheffield and her pamphlet ‘Confusion Species’ was a winner in
the 2011 Poetry Business competition and she received a 2013 Northern Writers’ Award. She
teaches creative writing and her poetry has been widely published in magazines including The
Rialto, Magma and The North.