Or your scants will come back to haunt you

Here’s to the thrill of ethical knickers

delivered by post through your own front door.
Each pair of pants comes carefully wrapped
in tactile fantastic brown papery packets,
patterned with turtles, octopuses and whales,
skilfully block-printed in India.

All of these garments are guaranteed free
of nasties like plastics, except just perhaps
those barcoded stickers proclaiming these knickers
one hundred per cent organic cotton, designed
entirely to delight on the very fine Isle of Wight,
dyed in colours as smashing as eggshell.

Already, I’m advised on my pants’ end of life,
little symbols explain how these ethical undies
can be sent back, then recycled safely. I must
express just a little alarm about future
manufacturing tactics of endless elastic, but
why not have big hopes for the morals of smalls?

Beth McDonough’s poetry is widely anthologised and published in Magma, Gutter, and elsewhere. Her first solo pamphlet Lamping for pickled fish is published by 4Word.Fairly soon, her site-specific poem will be installed on the Corbenic Poetry Path. She swims year round in the Tay, foraging close by.