Stuart Flynn
Her Skin, The Illuminated Manuscript
was at first a closed book. The blue angel
tattooed on her wrist was the first letter,
curved and ornate, in a text that lured me
still further into its complexities,
desperate to reach the conclusion.
On a more formal occasion,
the thin strap of her dress slipped to reveal
a lion rampant on her shoulder. Envy
seized me for a moment, but I conceded
first place to the king of beasts. Time passed
till the book fell halfway open, revealing
in the deep divide between the pages
the small black silhouette of a bull’s head,
as if waving the red material,
inviting me to charge. Which I did, down
to the penultimate paragraph, where
a tattooed eagle soared before my eyes,
raising me, with the precious manuscript
clutched to my chest, to the highest point. Closed,
I still wanted to read it all again.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The