A three-time Pushcart Prize 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). Her poetry and fiction have been featured in over 300 journals including 2River, The Acentos Review, California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Journal, Grey Sparrow, Notre Dame Review, Otoliths, Poetry Salzburg Review, San Pedro River Review, The Ilanot Review, and Westwind, among others. She resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever-frolicsome imps.

Sublimation

it is a curious thing,
the death of her across the sky:
these days, she exists in
the groans rising from echoes
of birds, fingers drew red,
clutching the archangels smooth
as vellum on the way down—
black river below works over silt
and stones, slithers like
serpents pressed into whispers
of daffodils and fern moss—
how could she have known
her offerings would be hushed
in the sacrament passed?
in the decibels arrived
desperate on the last breaths?
she lay stunned from the rush to
earth, beneath armored-plated,
cable-stayed bridge, heavy
with the requiem of galloping
resurrection hooves,
guileless and devouring,
skin brightened from being held
over flames—