Sligo Bookstore
by Amanda Hayden
aqua blue doorframes sew borders
around the tiny book market closet,
creaky stairs, book nook diorama
complete with ginger sleeved vinyl
dusty cobweb shelves, small towers
of adventures winding to my shoulders,
paper air, paper nostrils, paper lungs
and a smiling, skinny store owner
who piles one thin sliced poetry book
on top of another in my upturned hands,
mound of mattress pages filled with peas
like magpie, meadowsweet,
*drumlin, trawl, windbitten,
*boondock, buttonhole, *sliotan
paper words beanstalk stacked
and I close my eyes
until I am a tower too
until I am ink and wood’s dust
swirling up squeaking stairs
a cobweb curiosity
settling in Sligo sunlight
*drumlin – small hills
*boondock – remote, isolated area
*sliotan – hurling ball
Amanda Hayden is a Poet Laureate and award-winning Humanities Professor. Over forty of her poems have been featured in journals and anthologies. Her debut collection, American Saunter, is forthcoming (FlowerSong Press, 2024) with her second collection, Old World Wings following (Wild Ink Publishing, 2025). She recently won the 2023 River Heron Editor's Choice Poetry Prize for her poem "The Faery Bridges." She lives with her family and many furry rescue babies, including their very special blind three-legged pup named Vinny Valentine.