Aoife Lyall

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rainbow

Dripping in dragon’s blood, vermillion, rosso corsa, I prise the lids
off paint tins full of anxious amber, ginger, saffron. I use whatever
I can find— paintbrushes, rollers, mops, rags— to spread the colours
thick and fast across the doors and walls, the fence, the sky in an arc
of shifting ladders, aching limbs. Above the thirty-two shades of home
dashes of Van Gogh yellow finish the fire, followed by the blues—
all lapis lazuli and jazz— to sing you through the hazy indigo of another
nightmare shift. I crush idle amethysts to dust, martyr the front door.  

 

Aoife Lyall’s debut collection Mother, Nature (Bloodaxe Books, 2021) focuses on the tender and tragic moments of pregnancy and early motherhood. Twice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards, she was awarded an Emerging Scottish Writer residency by Cove Park in 2020. Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, she is currently writing her second collection.

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