Stitches. A poem by Amy Louise Wyatt

In the yellow lights
of rooms
men and women stitch.

Some by hand,
in other homes
machines will burrow in.

Fabric must be measured,
then cut in deft compassion;

these quarters of cloth:
an offering,
to bring an end to sadness.

Friends, in the days beyond
hiding—

the light will be so much
brighter
than we remember;

so, let us not unpick
the stitches
that we have sewn together.

……….

Amy Louise Wyatt is a poet from Bangor, Northern Ireland. Her work is published in a range of Irish and international journals. Amy was shortlisted for both the Seamus Heaney Award 2018 and The Dempsey and Windle National Poetry Day Competition 2019. She was a finalist in The National Funeral Services Poetry Competition in 2017; and was nominated for 2019 Best of Net. Amy won the inaugural Poetrygram Prize in 2019. She is the founding editor of The Bangor Literary Journal. Her debut poetry pamphlet ‘A Language I Understand’ is forthcoming in 2020 with Indigo Dreams.