By: Lana Bella

Down she will come from
among the branches
and roots, feathered skirts
pulled from the many
birds of the meridian sea.
She disciplined hands,
forgetting an entire winter
of throat missing glass,
where sorrow and gin met
in the damp of thumb
and fingers. A version of
mad stretching towards
the chignon of a girl scried
down in the lake, mouth
snagged on briars’ flints,
traveling her lips the better
to shape hymns of water.