I Walked My Shadow

by Lana Bella

Dark arched the deep dish of my hands,

down a shadow of far where new arms

flexed as stems. Silvering up the lane,

I walked my shadow into town, bent

to its river walking my December legs.

Casting eyes to the breeze, more lonely

than two should be, I took us by older

skies shaking in the dirt, a phantom to

the fond. Now as an old woman back in

her stilled land, I hooked under skin

struggling free the familiar dark fists,

and how their small bones hollowed like

a bouquet of forks, willing my body to

f

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