ORDINARY THINGS                             

Sometimes later I slip into bed,

an ampersand of mechanic                  

and inarticulate. My howl turns

to hush, longing like a S-train

receding with a cargo of arrays,            

roving thin against the earth-

pull moves. Slow to gather 

strength, I touch ears to refrain            

bruising the sundown black,

transmuting raw the hymns of 

this glass-bare desert, back 

and forth to feed on mayflies. 

Only I am the color of my blood, 

high today on pain's tart creed,            

laying out ohms between                      

the ticks of clock as if they will 

turn my flatness back to form. 

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 530 journals, The Cortland Review, 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.