5 Poems by Patrick Kindig
Break
For weeks two rabbits have sat
evenings in the grass outside
my apartment. They have been watching me
eat pomegranate flesh, naked,
seen me leave behind the seeds.
Something I have recently learned:
the body has enough blood
for the heart or the cock, enough fear
for both. I have learned there is
a way the body can tremble before
the white hole of the future and yet
keep trembling, keep tumbling
toward the light. For now: the world
is mute and blue. The air is cold,
growing colder. And in the kitchen
I am standing, windows open, still naked,
running water across my red hands, only
one rabbit breathing in the courtyard.
***
Bestiary: Asp
He takes his snake hands
& touches my lips.
He touches the pink folds
of my ear & hums:
anything to stop
the talking. The men
pass & pass in their grey
sweatpants & so
he tastes the air, one finger
in my mouth, one licking
the window’s condensation.
There are garnets
in his stomach. There
are garnets in his chest.
When he moves his jaw
the way he does
I see the inside
of his throat, its red jerk
& redder glisten, the way
its muscles
open wide & then, suddenly,
close.
***
Elegy
how do we measure
this deep upwelling sadness
first there is the balloon
then there is the balloon then
there is a sound & a window
where the balloon should be
***
Bestiary: Echeneis
Sometimes I go weeks
without noticing him:
the way he presses his mouth
against my chest, the way
he is always licking
at my body’s salt. Only
when the wind raises itself
& I try to raise myself too & fail
do I notice: neither of us
can walk. He is turning
my skin into aluminum,
my bones into lead. He is always
touching his tongue to my neck
& it is always winter. At night
he lays his head against my thigh
& cries. The moon recedes.
In the morning neither of us remembers
how to get out of bed.
***
resolution
this year I am learning
what the light can do.
I am looking differently
through windows,
at the hands of grocery
shoppers. this year
I am eating carrots
& cabbage, drinking
more water. becoming
a rabbit. I am burning
the photos in my bedroom
& breaking all the mirrors.
this year I am spending
more time with the door
open, lighting candles
that smell like axe
bodyspray. I am sleeping
at night & waking each morning
& remembering how to tell
time. this year I am replacing
alcohol with feelings. I
am listening more closely
to my lungs & I am trying
to make softer noises. this year
I am being resolute. I
am watching less porn
& finding new ways
to love myself, even
after dark. this year
I am learning the piano. I
am purchasing new socks.
Patrick Kindig is a PhD candidate at Indiana University, where he studies nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature. He is the author of the micro-chapbook Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016), and his poems have recently appeared in the Notre Dame Review, Meridian, Hobart, Muzzle, and other journals.
