Patrick Kindig
The students I teach
are more likely to die
than most. Horribly
& soon, I mean—in
battle, or in that skull-
numbed moment
before. Or simply
by a stray bullet
skimming the floor
of a foreign cafe. Teaching,
of course, I have always
worried. I am American
& death is always
treading the halls,
waiting its turn. But now
I know students
who know they will see death
soon, up close, horribly
& holding the red hand
of a friend. In class,
they sit up straight. They speak
with ease. But
when we pass
in the parking lot,
all I see is teens.
I want to take them all
for coffee, for ice cream,
to buy a new
video game. I want
to take their bright faces
in my hands & tilt them upward,
cry look! look! look
at all that blue!
Patrick Kindig is the author of the poetry collection fascinations (Finishing Line Press 2025), the poetry chapbooks all the catholic gods (Seven Kitchens Press 2019) and Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016), and the academic monograph Fascination: Trance, Enchantment, and American Modernity (LSU Press 2022). His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and other journals. He lives and teaches in Annapolis, MD. His views are his own; they do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Navy, the Department of Defense, or the US Government.