A poem by Patrick Kindig

Sintanjin 33 by Tim Fitts

New England Again

 I have missed the predictable angles
of houses & the swollen arms
of buff dads. & these buff dads’
sullen children, their sullen faces
frowning across the road. I have missed 
the threat of winter & the threat
of night, the threat behind the eyes
of old patrons when my husband & I
arrive to the opera late, a little tipsy. &
the opera, oh how I have missed 
the existence of opera. & the kinds 
of buildings where opera takes place. 
& the kinds of streets on which those buildings
live, somehow always lit by gas lamps—streets 
that lead past bars & convenience stores,
past good & bad art galleries, that offer,
somewhere along them, everything 
a person could ever need, that might lead, if 
you followed long enough, all the way back 
to Texas, to those dark, sleeping towns 
where, if you listened hard enough, 
you might still hear birds sing
when morning came, where 
to listen hard enough
is not very hard at all.

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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, The Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and other notable journals. He lives and teaches in Annapolis, Maryland.

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Tim Fitts is a short story writer and photographer. His work has been published in the New England Review, Granta, Shenandoah, Boulevard, Fugue, and the Baltimore Review, among others. His photographs have been shown in South Korea and the United States, most notably the Thomas Deans Gallery in Atlanta. His photographic works often combine color transparencies, as well as transparencies with black and white film.

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