The Universe in an Oyster
Lana Bella I cannot look for long at an oyster before it becomes a whorl born from the universe. Ebbs on by me, it totes those awkward shells, keen for retreat. Reach down, I feel its wet sleekness on my fingers, edging where the briny ocean lays in deluge. When the seafaring scale mouths my name in fragments, I remember to another time, of another landscape whose centrifuge brings about skedaddling words, dressed in menagerie of pearls and whiskers. Shrill and wavering, treasure chest of the deep are heard from inside the domed pods, rippling out into my upturned hands, leaving caresses in a thousand breaths of pale. Then through the bloated sheen, I skirt closer to the wisps of the mirage as metallic sky gropes for my curious eyes. There, I find myself on the other side of the oyster shell, floating on cot of salt marsh, above the dark blue sea. |
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About the Author:
A Pushcart nominee, Lana Bella is an author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press), has had her poetry and fiction featured with over 190 journals, Chiron Review, Coe Review, Columbia Journal, Elohi Gadugi, Foundling Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Galway Review, Gravel Review, Harbinger Asylum, Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Quarterly, Roanoke Review, Sentinel Quarterly, Toasted Cheese, and elsewhere, 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. Find her on Facebook here.
A Pushcart nominee, Lana Bella is an author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press), has had her poetry and fiction featured with over 190 journals, Chiron Review, Coe Review, Columbia Journal, Elohi Gadugi, Foundling Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Galway Review, Gravel Review, Harbinger Asylum, Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Quarterly, Roanoke Review, Sentinel Quarterly, Toasted Cheese, and elsewhere, 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. Find her on Facebook here.