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Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Bella
by Sheikha A.

The air is bewitched scent of roses 

unbound by time. She chalks rings 

.

around his grave —  inhale wet sand — 

her cards’ diagram spell’s precision:

.

catch hoot of an owl in the first wisp, 

catch fear on its breath in final release

.

and shudder from its dislodging neck

when in her hands it writhes to death. 

.

Bella— moon nuances print of stars

on milky silken of the peeling night;

.

she clutches her toes she’s severed 

for him — inhale wet blood —  

.

bury nails in the place of his head. 

The remains of her toes she skins, 

.

plucks out their veins to feed the owl, 

gathers the waste how her cards diagram. 

.

Bella— voice sweet harp of valleys

coiled in fleece on glowing nights;

.

she performs cards’ missive — inhale

wet stone — digs until fingers are torn 

.

before moon retreats into blurry void;

and when she has, he will come alive.

.

Lunar beauty — inhale wet grave —

catch heat of a fleeting comet by a creek;

.

step into a fire-ring of thorns and bleed —

bleed Bella, into twilight’s hurricane hail.

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!