Cousin

After her years
spent sleeping in
the bathtub because
the voices don’t
come to her there

and after she
whacked the plumber
when she thought
he’d come there
to rape her, we

are nervous to see
her at the family
funeral, but when
she glimpses my
father's brother

so gray in his gray
coffin she grieves
rawly though carefully
as the rest of us
and explains,

he was my uncle
too, and we say
yes he was though
we’d almost forgotten,
we'd wanted to flush

her from our blood
where she belongs
and where our
voices without hers
would be wrong.

Laurinda Lind lives in New York's North Country and doesn't mind it. Previous publications/ acceptances include Chiron Review, The Comstock Review, Cold Mountain Review, Indefinite Space, Trestle Creek Review, Ellipsis, and Uproot.