Kendall A. Bell
A purpose
You are the shrunken ice cubes
melting in the drain screen—
the invisible husk that walks
hunched between trees and over
trash and goose shit littered
suburban side streets. In the
busy air of afternoon, only the
birds will notice your descent
into the forest. Steel does not
make noise, and the ground will
consume what it is fed, will take
even the most useless parasites,
and give them a purpose.
After the clearing
In my closets are all of the ghosts
that stretch their limbs around me
when the lights are out. Strewn on
my desk are half, and nearly finished
books whose words are contentment.
I have the ache in my shoulder that
has outlasted you—my depression still
speaks to me, has drowned out memories
of your covenant. I have the hum through
vents, the snap of my ankle when I walk.
I am not comfortless, and you are vapor
after the clearing.
Kendall A. Bell’s poetry has been nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net collection in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015. He is the author of twenty one chapbooks. His current chapbook is We Are All Ghosts. He is the founder and co-editor of the online journal Chantarelle’s Notebook, publisher/editor of Maverick Duck Press, and a music and book reviewer with Five2One Magazine. His Italian heritage comes from his mother, who told him that her grandmother was “straight off the boat from Italy,” and makes the best struffoli he’s ever had. Find out more about him at www.kendallabell.com
OVUNQUE SIAMO 