Lana Bella
Sometimes Less and Never More Often
after Mitch Albom’s For One More Day
You felt the grief like a thought
with dagger for lips, nailing
a finger until dark ached you.
You walked out to the water where
yours was the body greening in
jetsam, as if you were born to feel
the cool wetness before you die.
Let it straddle a hundred yards of
soft-mud earth, you lay hands
pressing to sediments idling over
fingertips, a pleasure that hungered
in the way of pain. Then you slid
belly up, marked in the inert to
the threshold you’ve pushed into,
as time rolled, rolling on from you
giving in and the water tearing out.
Black-Laquered Horizon
His eyes turn toward the sky
as the desert stretches miles
touching the other side of fear.
To have discovered the black–
lacquered horizon, he bathes
his intestines with diesel fuel
and flames it like a hurricane
lamp. Tonight, the bathos of
chiaroscuro thaws pale beyond
his fingers like metal roof over
his head, where the sky dims
then slides once more to black.
About Lana Bella
Note: Black Laquered Horizon was previously published in The Olentangy Review.
A four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net, & 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 work featured in over 500 journals, Barzakh, EVENT, The Fortnightly Review, Ilanot Review, Midwest Quarterly, New Reader, Notre Dame Review, Sundress Publications, & Whiskey Island, among others, and 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.