Dear Suki: Los Angeles, December 2nd, somehow, just now,
I find a memory of you in that old pair of blue jeans, the one
that tears awfully at the knees and fades from front to end.
My melancholia, this, when there is nothing to lean back to
unless I am holding on to some visible threads with your
invisible glue, how steady the ligaments, how imperishable
the starch. This may seem silly but it is not my intention to
make you sad, well, at any rate, I think I will don your blue
jeans over my wool leggings, to add an extra layer to ward
off this December cold. So that my stirring moves just so
against the memory of your body.

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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 200 journals, including California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Journal, Gravel, Plainsongs, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Writing Disorder, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere, among others. Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam. Read more about Lana: https://www.facebook.com/Lana-Bella-789916711141831/