​I’ve Come Around This Time To Set Fire To Your Bones by Kendall A. Bell

to lay waste to any inhibition, to use your legs
as a ladder—a slow climb to deep breaths. Skin
is a barrier torn down, a breached railroad crossing—
gates down, gates crashed, lights blinking furiously.
Our staccato rhythm, our early spring headboard soundtrack—
a rush of frenzied guitar strings blasting from internal
amps. We watch the rise and fall in collapse, see the
vapor radiate off flesh. The walls are an engulfed wasteland
holding us in fortress. We watch the curtains drop ash to
the floor, and strike another match.

Kendall A. Bell’s poetry has been most recently published in Your One Phone Call and Work to a calm. He was nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net collection in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015. He is the author of nineteen chapbooks. His current chapbook is “Trust Fall”. 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 chapbooks are available through Maverick Duck Press. He lives in Southern New Jersey.