Bella

By India Das-Brown, November 2024

In a green and golden robe she sits 

before a soldier and 

two large unsalted snappers. 

What’s wrong, she says. And sound 

reaches ear, in complex accumulation 

of quiet emotion.

Bella, he says. 

I have shared with you 

my home, treated you 

with kindness, and 

covered you 

with attention. 

This was the last thing I deserved. 

If you keep a shred of love

for yourself and 

a gleam of respect for me, 

you will fix what you have done. 

There is no need even of apology.

And so she emerges, 

in dark and purple pigment, 

from the body of the dragon that has 

swallowed her. 

In fossilized 

teary-eyed 

monologue, 

she conveys a 

delicate plasticity,

habitual passivity, and 

symbolic Evil. Says 

outer surface of the universe 

tempts inner passions of the spirit 

accumulate in density. Says 

beak, ripped through flesh, ripped through 

crystallized soul, through visible to unseen, 

is exaltation of desire and 

guilty transcendence. 

I’m sorry, 

she says, and 

crowned with rusted stars, lies 

naked on the table.

Undeserved compassion softens and 

shuts the eyes of the beholder. 

And come morning, they are weary

as the alarm clock is quite early.