Winter went riling against
hard grains of moxie, cotton
failed to bud, and dovekies
tangled in casters of wind.
So, I, too, will nudge into
the dusk with its black,
dripping stars; thirst my lips
with malt and smoke, pulses
wrested back for Percocet
rendezvous. Borne up by cries
as I was born, my escape into
cerebrum wound sharper
than a knife cut around glass,
ferocious and hunting, steel
chained to limestone, softness
to factory-decree—yet, with
distance, these tracks waxed
my pressure point to balletic
minuets at midnight. Nest laid
and warm, I tasted what have
silvered out in sweat, opined
for the loss of milk and honey,
uncorked god from his brown-
neck jug.
A three-time Pushcart Prize & Bettering American Poetry nominee, Lana Bella is an 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), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 400 journals, Acentos Review, Comstock Review, Expound, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Waccamaw, Word/For Word, among others, and work to appear in Aeolian Harp Anthology, Volume 3. Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.