November 2022

A SPANISH LULLABY
Written by Lana Bella


Your champagne-colored hair  
was veiled from the red brewing sun
under a ribbons-plaited bonnet white;
you looked sidelong about the garden green
crooning then a Spanish lullaby,

fair curls spilled on bent shoulders loose
as rich turns of laughter dimpled your cheeks aglow
while swiftly stirred the pleated skirt a gushing breeze
raised up the tulle-laced panels with cream-stitched petals high,

into such brightness of air your rhythms rose
beyond the jutting boughs where scarlet flowers dwelt
its smoky chords scoured the listening groves
for some songbird who'd chime along with your throaty peals,

you skipped bare feet upon the tall grass cambered low
and seven and six and five and four and three and two
the soaring notes from lips bare of varnished rouge

trickled down like iced-sugar leafs strewed on blossoms' skin.

Lana Bella has a diverse work of poetry and flash fiction published and forthcoming with 
Anak Sastra, Atlas Poetica, Bare Back Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Beyond 
Imagination, Buck-Off Magazine, Calliope Magazine, Cecile's Writers' Magazine, Deltona 
Howl, Earl of Plaid Lit, Eunoia Review, Family Travel Haiku, First Literary Review-East, 
Five Willows Literary Review, Foliate Oak Literary, Garbanzo Literary Journal, Global 
Poetry, Ken*Again, Kind Of A Hurricane Press, Marco Polo Arts Literary, Mothers Always 
Write, Nature Writing, New Plains Review, Poetry Pacific, Spank The Carp, The Camel 
Saloon, The Commonline Journal, The Higgs Weldon, The Voices Project, Thought 
Notebook, War Anthology: We Go On, Undertow Tanka Review, Wordpool Press, 
Wilderness House Literary Review, Featured Artist with Quail Bell Magazine. She resides 
on some distant isle with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps.

https://www.facebook.com/niaallanpoe