Two Poems: The Low Queen; Double Exposure
The Low Queen
After Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen”
If you want to be a witch,
come to me on your belly.
If you only want to be
a woman out in the world,
then you are still a wind
that blows four ways but
heats all the chimneys
for a hundred miles. It’s
cold out there, but leave
some of your clothes
behind so you can feel
your way with your hands
and your feet. Before you
light up the north at night
you must make a message
of yourself like a cod with
a code in its flesh: once
you read this, run. Run
like a cold blood through
all the length of the land.
Double Exposure
I think I see a bat up near
the ceiling light, above
the head of the priest
saying a thing about
poetry in its place.
It’s a quick dark flash
like a smudge in the air
over words, then gone.
We are a place in a day.
He wants a place in us.
Maybe we’re circling around
outside the room. Once
in a while, zip back in to see
what it is we’re doing.
A long dip, that’s all we get
of our darker life, shade
where everything shifts.
The place the priest thinks
he left, a place where
the poems think they live.
About Laurinda Lind
Laurinda Lind keeps adding insulation in New York’s North Country in the U.S. In honor of Compose Journal, here are her publications/acceptances that start with C: Chautauqua, Chiron Review, Cokefish, Cold Mountain Review, Coldnoon, Communion, Comstock Review, Conclave, Constellations, The Cortland Review, and Corvus Review.
