Current
Issue
Volume 12.2
Patrick Kindig
—
Dystopian Fiction
A girl learns
she is the key
to a dark door
rusted shut.
Her brother learns
to pick locks.
Together they enter
an empty 7-11.
They pilfer potato chips
& sweet drinks.
They do not understand
metaphor. They have not
been to school in years
& they have not
been taught that one thing
can mean another.
But the girl has learned
to open beer bottles
with her teeth
& her brother has learned
to drink. They practice
often. Together
they drain bottle
after bottle & blow
low notes from the lips
of the empties.
They do not make music
but something
like it. They marvel
at their mouths, how
little teaching
they need. Somewhere,
a revolution
is happening. Somewhere,
the weather is changing.
They explore dumpsters
behind department stores,
find old clothes that,
the girl learns, she can use
to make umbrellas.
She makes some. When
the rain comes, her brother
learns to fix
ripped fabric. Only a little
water gets in.
Patrick Kindig the author of the poetry collections Agape (forthcoming from Saturnalia 2026) and fascinations (Finishing Line 2025), the academic monograph Fascination: Trance, Enchantment, and American Modernity (LSU 2022), and two chapbooks. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, and other journals. He lives and teaches in Annapolis, MD.
