Cohabiting

When it begins, things 
change. For example:
meals. For another:

waking, the way 
it’s earlier
& later & never

alone. This
is to say nothing of
masturbation, how

it feels like a sin
again, a solitary
habit made

unsolitary. Like reading
or the sunrise:
all small pleasures now

shared, become 
co-habits. It’s as if one day
two monks chose silence

together, decided 
to wear the same wool robe
at the same time. &

the robe was scratchy
& not quite big enough
for two monks

& when they got hot
& cranky there
was nowhere to turn

but away, into
the cloth. But when
winter came &

the icicles formed
& the wind snuck through
the window’s cracks, my

god, how warm it was
in there, how far
from the snow, how distant

the lonely 
eye of the moon, 
the cold white light 

it rained down.

*

Patrick Kindig is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection fascinations (Finishing Line Press 2025), the chapbook all the catholic gods (Seven Kitchens Press 2019), and the micro-chapbook Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016) as well as the academic monograph Fascination: Trance, Enchantment, and American Modernity (Louisiana State University Press 2022). His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and other journals.