White Lace Over Clover Leaf

By Lana Bella / Issue 11

What this cancer kneaded into me
at night, cracking a brittle fastness,
the sort to set loafers to pavement
as if I swayed in sync against dirt’s
undertow. Tonight, I stayed cold by
the windowsill, checkered towards
another sleep like an artifact for
all to view on pose of cathartic air.
Coltrane on vinyl, Casablanca on
TV, I feasted on morphine before
the whole weight of me fell jangled
like a weak key, dervish for the thin
bone tattooing string of letters on
glass. My shape blue under the easy
moon, I knew then of memories as
narratives of space, the verses exact,
seeding where the lamplight golded
down my hand, shimmering off skin
that no longer fit. Still, it was lovely
here, my eyes hooked to the tailspin of
clover leaf arcing out like a verdigris
pendant, while I spilled white lace
from slope of shoulder just tenderly.

LANA BELLA is four-time Pushcart Prize, five-time Best of the Net, & Bettering American Poetry nominee, and 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). She has work featured in over 530 journals, The Cortland Review, EVENT, The Fortnightly Review, Ilanot Review, Midwest Quarterly, New Reader, Notre Dame Review, Sundress Publications, and Whiskey Island, among others. She resides in the U.S. and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mother of two children.