cuts through her felt,
pressing the escape
of late fruits and seeds
over the dangling light
of fresh wool and fog.
Through the polished
whorls gently throbbed
between symmetry and
explosion, her cold eyes
flash wet and warm in
the shadows, slipstream
over delicate curves of
betrayal's tawdry corpse.
When nothing is familiar,
not even the slobbering
wisps of dark ectoplasm
that drape themselves
across her skin like sable
fur, she carves eyes into
the rinds of the currents,
with her ego a hollow queen.
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.
