“If There Had Been Rain” by Lana Bella

It was a windy day in the city with
little clouds and tossing leaves. If
there had been rain, it would have
snuck through the colorless sky,
spilled of droplets white, and blended
in my hot cup of spearmint tea, cooling it.
If there had been rain, I would have
seen the reedy clump caught where
the water churned low, gasping. If
there had been rain, those marigold
seeds just freshly sewn inside my
flowerbed would have hollowed out,
bare-skinned. If there had been rain, the
earlier impressions left by my son’s
bicycle track would have washed
along with the shadowed bones,
emptying out to sewer. If there had
been rain, a small girl edging near
the levee deep would have leaned
back where the ground grew muddy
and slick, darkening her yellow dress.
If there had been rain, the deafening
chaos of the outside would have
dissolved into fly speck, seeking refuge
in a heavy dew. As such, all things bend,
curve, fade, or turn in the rain: light, dark,
laughter, tears, grass, stardust, flesh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lana Bella has a diverse work of poetry and flash fiction published and forthcoming with Anak Sastra, Atlas Poetica, Bareback Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Beyond Imagination, Buck-Off Magazine, Calliope Magazine, Cecile’s Writers’ Magazine, Dead Snakes Poetry, Deltona Howl, Earl of Plaid Lit, Eunoia Review, Eye On Life Magazine, 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, Undertow Tanka Review, Wordpool Press, Beyond The Sea Anthology, War Anthology: We Go On, Wilderness House Literary Review, and has been a featured artist with Quail Bell Magazine. She resides on some distant isle with her novelist husband and two frolicsome imps.  facebook.com/niaallanpoe