POETRY BY KENDALL BELL

TRIGGER WARNING: ALLUSION TO DEATH

​CADENCE

A casualty of confinement,
of a heart pushed beyond
the limits of disappointment--
the cracks in the form of
two brothers swept into an
insurmountable tide. Natural
causes can mean anything,
can be how a body will give
up after it can no longer
withstand the battering of
a hurricane that will not
leave to die at sea. What is
left is an unwinnable crying
game, an echo, the stillness
found in solitude—the pleas
unanswered.

-

A PERFECT AND NECESSARY DARKNESS

Vanishing is a learned skill,
like carpentry or iron work,
and this body is a house with
the lights turned off, with
the power at a crawl. Eyes
are bloodshot maps that lead
to a flooded peninsula—land
mass being swallowed by an
unforgiving sea. There will
be bows in front of a black
curtain, a collapse and a
shattering—shards that scatter
and blend into soil. A room
floods with ghost stories.

Kendall A. Bell's poetry has been most recently published in Crepe & Penn and Pink Plastic House. He was nominated for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net collection in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018. He is the author of two full length collections, "The Roads Don't Love You" (2018) and "the forced hush of quiet" (2019), and 28 chapbooks, the latest being "woodvale." He is the publisher/editor of Maverick Duck Press and editor and founder of Chantarelle's Notebook. His chapbooks are available through Maverick Duck Press. He lives in Southern New Jersey.