she's out back counting stars

Kendall A. Bell

and all the places she'd rather be
while her body slumps lower into
the buckled fabric of a weather
beaten chair. At some point, this
will lull her to sleep, and I'll
have to softly shake her thigh to
rouse her from slumber, and she'll
swat at me, still mumbling numbers
that add up to nothing. This rain
hasn't stopped for three days, and
she'd still prefer the light breeze
on the porch, the dying orange light
of a clove cigarette sitting in a
black ashtray over sharing a blanket
that barely covers us both. She may
as well be on a bus, staring out the
window, watching her past, and me,
as the final pages of a novel she
forced herself to finish.

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Kendall A. Bell's poetry has been most recently published in Wickerpedia and Vulnerary Magazine. He was nominated for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net collection seven times. He is the author of two full length collections, "The Roads Don't Love You" (2018) and "the forced hush of quiet" (2019), and 29 chapbooks, the latest being "bloodstream". 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.

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