Author | Lana Bella
Somewhere, a rustle of music held
traces of an applause fading. Like
a lit wick in wind, you reached back,
side-stroked the rhythms only to lose
them five notes down. Ballads of black-
robed shoes set stage for the spiccato
dark, pantyhosed feet itched to ease
in stinging nettle bath. You picked up
a key and skipped it over sober wisps
of light, pale-skinned smooth, against
the throwing shade jerking the air like
a stone. Retinas tautened with a burst
of sinuous semaphore, weeping through
that space with silence dressed you in
costume, and your fingertips still ached
to claim Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata
down the spine of your rusted red cello.
About the Author | Lana Bella A three-time Pushcart Prize & 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 380 journals, 2River, Acentos Review, California Quarterly, Comstock Review, Expound, Grey Sparrow, Ilanot Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, San Pedro River Review, Waccamaw, Word/For Word, among others, and work to appear in 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.