Attempt with a Gap in It

Absent billions, conjure dumplings: 
eggs, flour, gleaming hands interlaced, 
jam jars kept loose-lidded. Muster				
nectar. Open piquant quinces. 
Ribbons strung through unlatched 
vaulted windows,

wind-waved, violet, 
umber, turquoise. Read, reread. Quote poets 
on needful matters, lunar kennings. Jump 
into handsprings, giddy for everything—
drifting, clapping bells, alleluias.

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Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St Brigid Press. New work appears in the Georgia Review, Orion, and the Southern Review. Bell teaches at UNC Wilmington and is the editor of Ecotone. She lives with her family near what’s now called the Cape Fear River.