2 poems

by Laurinda Lind

freelance

a word i wrote

on my c.v. as if

it was a stick to hold stories

& where they landed

maybe as i made lists of astrological symbols

& wrote my poems in shorthand in

that private way to budget the lies

by people arranged in rooms,

plus lay it down fast then

write it out an hour eight dollars,

like a row of crows taking off

from a stone wall & their feathers as they fell

sifting down black as ink.

how lovers are like starfish

Or are lovers like starfish

or where do they stick,

ashore would they find 

more of what they wanted 

from a sea or one another,

call it available space if 

atoms rearrange and agree 

to go again, and if what went 

missing mouths the words in

a chorus of rebecoming.

Laurinda Lind lives in New York’s North Country, close to Canada. Some of her poems are in Blue Earth Review, Josephine Quarterly, and The Inflectionist Review. Her first chapbook, Trials by Water, was released in summer 2024 (Orchard Street Press).