by Lana Bella
Spun into tiny bird bones, into
a noose of ivory cloister strobed
against rasps of crescendo, air
kept on the flutters and slips of
the girl on horseback, shreds of
brown saddled calendared head.
As that trot formed warm, open
like resonance crowning flights
and constellated, she breathed
diaphragm to lips foaming grins
with urgency of thighs, fevering
the pasture where gypsy horses
fed. Webbing a citrus net of trees,
she galloped mid-stride through
July sun’s quartz edges scratch,
catching on fingers in quadrilles
of quasar pleats, clutching fields
levied in a million secret wounds.
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 430 journals, Acentos Review, Comstock Review, EVENT, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Rock and Sling, & Lampeter Review, among others, and work to appear in Aeolian Harp Anthology, Volume 3.