magnolia boughs breaking
through the glass,
claret glow scorched sweat back
into your skin, much like an omen
cinched to lips on the smattering
of proverbial conversations.
How you crossed the length of
my stirring in tall, slow steps,
bone-girdled on the bulbous sack
of the lunch-hour's long giraffe-tongue.
At times I'd forget how your ears
could bend into a whispering close
to my teeth, parting the enamel with
a diaspora of an empire.
Coming down from a half-liquid voice
canoed the carpet worn,
you turned to the plaster walls
creased of caulk like acrylic scars,
and how the traces of my ganglial vines
still held frozen beneath the concrete.
A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is the author of three chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016), Adagio (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and Dear Suki: Letters (Platypus 2412 Mini Chapbook Series, 2016), and has had poetry and fiction featured in Acentos Review, Barzahk, EVENT, The Fortnightly Review, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Rock & Sling, The Stillwater Review, Sundress Publications and Whiskey Island, among others. Her work appeared in Aeolian Harp Anthology, Volume 3. She resides in the U.S. and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is ‘mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.
