No. 41 Summer 2023

Anna Lena Phillips Bell List

Lean me to you,
me to your up-
standing, held in
tilt, in kilter.
Let my angle
be untakeable,
let the space be-
tween you and me
be dry, safe for
leaving thoughts to
turn to dust in.
Even having
still my haltered
self, to know you
heft it effort-
lessly to you—
here I loosen,
list in to who
is who I’d over
ever lean to.


Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize, and Smaller Songs, a chapbook from St Brigid Press. She teaches at UNC Wilmington and is the editor of Ecotone. Online: annalenaphillipsbell.net