She snaked down the sky like ibis
sweeping the landscape of snow,
palpatating on telegraph line.
A concentric point of red dared
into the susurrus of pale, she grew
trust to barrier island beneath,
beguiling the steady strums
of windsong with her flight. Loose
hair frosted the reed of marsh
when east and west of everything
but herself ceded seamless to
icy fall, she drew breaths then
exhaled, spilling through the mist
spreading smooth. Today she’ll
pour down her waist in flesh, take
shape over sand from gnostic moats
to icegerg seas to nautical shrouds,
sieving inches apart instead of
miles over a hundred perfect times.

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 had poetry and fiction featured with over 450 journals, Acentos Review, Comstock Review, EVENT, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Rock and Sling, The Stillwater Review, & Whiskey Island, among others, and work appeared in Aeolian Harp Anthology, Volume 3.