The Tank

Brittney Austin

A place where someone thought it a good idea to dress us up as turtles.

We've surely forgotten what it feels like to sleep on a mattress, after

sleeping on yoga mats for so long. I cried in the hospital room

during my first outside trip. The nurses transferred me from a gurney

to a posturepedic mattress. My body sighed at the feet of clouds.

I thought: My God, a real bed.

Come to think of it, they may have been on to something with the

turtle theme. Five out of seven community toilets are clogged.

We've been inhaling each other's fecal matter for approximately

three weeks now. Sort of like a turtle tank.

The water from the tap seems to be a cocktail of 4 parts pennies,

2 parts sugar: coppery with a sweet aftertaste. Woe to those

who must survive off the bartenders' leftover pennies. These

pennies buy them a lot more than they bargain for.

Do turtles shed their shells as we do before slumber? Literally

and metaphorically.

I've been told several times that frozen water is a privilege.

I guess I'm privileged to be able to pluck icicles from

my eyelids when the heat's not working.

It's forbidden to rest straight through the night, so if you

want to become a pariah, refrain from standing at 5:30 a.m.,

as is customary.

I was offered immunization and never given it. Then again, what

for? Turtles have long lifespans, don't they?

A roach in my salad. Protein?

The benches in the field belong to the hardbacks. Softshells either stand, or make laps.

Are turtles territorial?

Green. Green, Green, Green, Green everywhere except on the

other side. Sand, and the only bodies of water are the stale

puddles in the concentration-style shower room. Black worms infest these puddles, but

our shells protect us from disease.

How hurtful to see such majestic creatures behave like crabs in

a barrel. Bad turtles.

Green Tomatoes

Shantelle Scruggs

The green tomatoes lie bare on the windowsill

at grandma's house

Not yet ready to eat

Somehow I managed to wait

and then in a few days I’d forget

You were a prize from her garden

Something to keep her strong

and her hands busy

and her mind from being swallowed up

by thoughts of her dying husband

But all I could see were the green tomatoes

side by side on the windowsill when I was 10 years old

They were soaking up the sun

Somehow reaching for the light

to surround them in a soon-to-be-lonely kitchen

Grandpa loved the gizzards and

grits you cooked him for breakfast

I can hear the sound even now

of the meat sizzling in the cast-iron pan

It was rubbery, salty, crunch, mildtasting

in my mouth

But I was too young to understand

the difference between “have to” and “want”

How every action may be an art in trying

to manage the throes of grief

from the way tomatoes are lined on

a windowsill

or the way the sound of meat sizzling

in a pan becomes a portal trapping us

in time and space

instead of saying goodbye, denying

others the same

to keep from falling apart

Then I saw the bottles of vodka

under the bathroom sink,

in cabinets,

EVERY DAY without fail until

we decided you didn’t

want help

No more were the green tomatoes that

lined the windowsill

and no sun came in

And it didn’t matter to you

like it did to me

Communion

(an abecedarian)

Onyx & Cassandra Traina

A week ago I was whole and warm, and now I’m just busy.

            Beautiful soul, don’t let your busy life distract you.

Contact tracing serves as an inadequate reminder that we're all connected.

            Don’t you know that the magic of the ancients breathes around us, connects us?

Erasing the lines I've written all week, I am tired of the language at my disposal.

            Forget it and listen to the language of the stars that dribble jewels.

Groceries for the week include apples, kale, peanut butter, whole grain bread, and pork loin.

            How do you define everything that’s absolutely necessary?

Individuality does not exist—I’ve known this all my life.

            Just recently, I learned that finding yourself proves your individuality.

Knowing you has made me a better person—I’ve just discovered this.

            Life has given me the honor of meeting you so I can look through my lens a little more                                                  clearly.

Maybe when this is all over we can find new ways of communication.

            Never are true bonds ever broken apart.

Onyx laughs and I laugh with her.

            Picking up the puzzle pieces of the jigsaw that life is, we put them together.

Quenching my thirst has proven to be difficult.

            Revealing pieces of my soul isn’t so hard through ink.

Surrounded is not the same as intertwined.

            Temple that is my body, my soul, I will cherish you.

Underneath my quilt, I am safe in my own arms.

            Visions I have yet to understand plague my dreams.

Walking has become less about moving from here to there and more about moving.

            Xplain how and why the world has become bored with itself.

You know where to find me.

            Zeus crosses the iridescent skies on a chariot of moonfire, and you’ve always ridden with                                          him.

-----------------

An abecedarian takes the letters of the alphabet as the first letter of each line: 26 lines, so we wrote 13 lines each. Cassie started with A, Onyx with B, and we continued that way until we had a complete poem.

Though we'd collaborated since meeting in a combined poetry course between Sarah Lawrence College students and students at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, this was the first time we worked on a piece as co-poets. In the beginning of the course, our professor Suzanne Gardinier randomly paired each student on the inside with one on the outside, and we were matched, in what now seems like kismet. For a few weeks, we passed our shy, excited letters of introduction through an intermediary. But very quickly our letters, which sometimes took weeks to reach each other, became a lifeline in the pandemic. Moving beyond topics of poetry, we experienced the rare joy of finding a close friend and confidant at an unexpected time in your life.

This poem was born out of the desire to collaborate and the need to find a way to do so through the limitations of our communication. While it was nearly impossible to write something together in real time, writing alternating lines in the abecedarian style allowed us to achieve the level of coherence we were looking for. Our poem in many ways mirrors the way we pass information, confessions, and encouragements between us. The final result of our letters brought forth a poem that is a salute to the rare beauty of genuine friendship. "Communion" originally appeared in a collective zuihitsu created by our class, entitled The Tank, after a brilliant piece written by our classmate, Brittney Austin. Our course ended in May 2021, and since then we have continued writing to each other and sharing our work.

from Brittney's zuihitsu: