Leitermacaward
Co. Donegal
Like your mother
at her mother’s door
—dislocated
leaning to one side
open, exposed
and in turn
her mother
further on in the photo
—shy and strong
a lethal combination
unstitched
a North Atlantic
hammering
the bog edge
at slack and slope of yard
you know these women
—in glint, in stone
and wait on them
to turn light
and again to turn light
Sonya Gildea is a current winner of the 2020 Ireland Chair of Poetry Student Award and is also winner of the 2015 Cúirt International New Writer Award. She has published in the Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Crannóg, and the anthology Hold Open The Door (UCD & Chicago Press 2020), which commemorates the 50th anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s Nobel Prize. She is a graduate (1st /Hons) MA Creative Writing, University College Dublin. She lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.