Paragon | Spontaneity

The Untethering by Lisa McGill © 2019. I paint the sea. I try to paint the feeling of the sea. I try to make it immersive. Generations of my family lived on a now depopulated island off the coast of Donegal. I go there to paint. I feel as if the sea, through some kind of generational imprint, courses through me. See more of my work here.

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Paragon by Amy Louise Wyatt

I wanted to know I had a body –

for no body is eternal.

As child, the Canon taught me how

to count on fingers of one hand.

In this way, I was fifth –

for he counted in order of who to love.

God, a mighty thumb, bulbous and worthy.

Family, an index less important than God.

Friends, an equator running the hand.

I kept my ring finger for those I did not know.

Then me. Tiniest, least significant, furthest from God.

The most unlike the thumb. In every way.

Now an adult, the Canon’s teachings

make a paragon of my hand.

Still, in the night

I find myself unable to love my body.

Amy Louise Wyatt is a poet, lecturer and artist from Bangor, N.I. She has had work published in journals such as The Honest Ulsterman, Boyne Berries, FourxFour and Dodging the Rain. Amy has read her poetry on The BBC Arts Show, at University of Ulster’s Riverside Readings and at festivals. She is the editor of The Bangor Literary Journal and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2018.

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