A Poem by Patrick Kindig

Author: Poetry Editor

May 24, 2018

This week, a poem by Patrick Kindig.

 

Parable

 

on the bus there is one seat left

& the man takes it / beside him

a woman slicing an apple

blue fingernails in the sunlight

bright & shuttling from knife

to mouth / eyes fixed

on the window across the aisle

behind it bluebirds & smokestacks

& the woman smiling

in the glass between mouthfuls

she shifts her body / her hair

unfolding patchouli & lemon / look

if there is a key to this

it is something like a slipknot

or a second lock / some kind

of orphaned feeling still in the throat

& looking to become possible

yes / the man knows this

he knows this & knows better

& yet / & yet / there in the glass

the woman with her mouth

& her hair & beside her

a boy folding his hands in his lap

begging with his eyes for a bite of apple

& begging / too / for anything but that

——

PATRICK KINDIG is currently a PhD candidate in Indiana University’s Department of English. He is the author of the micro-chapbook Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016), and his poems have appeared in Willow Springs, Third Coast, Meridian, Columbia Poetry Review, and other journals.