MISTAKE
It’s morning and the guard brings us two trays. Cottony toast. A juice box of orange juice concentrate. A sausage patty. And a mush of eggs.
Tanya takes her tray on her lap. She eats the food with small pinches of her fingers. I say I’m not hungry, out loud—to whomever is listening. I yell out that I want to make a call and I won’t eat until I get it. The guard tells me that I already made my call. I yell out that I want to make another call. The guard says that’s not possible. I only get one. Tanya says that I need to shut the fuck up already and eat my fucking food.
I start yelling, “Angelina! Angelina!” Tanya rolls her eyes and covers her ears. Her long teal nails crown her temples. I grab the bars and lunge toward the guard.
“Angelina! Angelina!” I yell at the guard’s face.
The guard pulls out her baton. She strikes it once on the bar near my hand. My fingers flinch.
“Your knuckles are next,” the guard says.
I look at her. She looks at me. We see other things.
“Annnnnngeeeelllinnnnnaaaaaa!!” I yell out.
The guard flips the side of her baton at my hand grasping the bar.
White, sudden white, surges through my head. I stagger.
I’m squeezing my eyes and squeezing my hand.
“Ouch—” I manage to gasp, as if humiliated by breath.
HAPPINESS
“Happy now?” Tanya says.
My hand is pulsing with frost.
ZABASTOVKA
Tanya has craters where she has pecked her food. Mine is untouched.
“Your fucking zabastovka won’t get you anything,” Tanya mumbles.
“I’m not protesting.” I look up.
“Whatever,” Tanya says dryly.
She moves her tongue in her mouth and sends a wad of spit onto my tray.
MY PLACE
It’s by the steel toilet. I sit there. I stand there. I sleep there.
I YELL BETWEEN THE BARS
When I hear footsteps. There are often footsteps. There is rarely someone.
WHAT’S YOUR SHIT STORY?
Suddenly Tanya’s got questions for me. I don’t answer. She hits the bunk with a flat hand.
“Bitch, I’m trying to get to know you.”
I swallow and lift my gaze.
“I don’t want you to get to know me.”
IT’S MY FIRST NIGHT HORIZONTAL
I climb up to my bunk and I sleep there.
Tanya’s picking at her nails. She doesn’t notice or she doesn’t care.
IN MY SLEEP
There’s a child in the corner. In the dark. In our cell. There’s a child reciting with the voice of a bird. There are no birds outside. There is no morning light, just light without time, making shadows through the bars. I tilt my head. They make telephone wires. If only I could get one more phone call. If only, Angelina.
There’s a child reciting under his breath. His breath is made of the horizon. There’s a child reciting a poem in Russian. There is water everywhere. It is the Russian language. I close my eyes and open my eyes. He is still there.
There is a child in the corner, in the dark, in the storm.
THE STORM
“A lonely sail is flashing white
Amidst the blue mist of the sea…”
the boy is reciting.
THE LONE BOAT
Is restless.
IT COULD
Stay in the gleaming sunlight. Stay in the calm azure waters.
AND YET
“…it seeks out a storm
As if in storms it could find peace.”
WAKE UP
I’m rolling my head right and left. I’m trying to get myself out of the dream. The heavy-handed dream that is pulling me under his voice. I’m twisting behind my eyelids. Wake up, Olga.
GEMS
My eyes burst open. There, near our steel toilet, shivering in his little green swimsuit, the boy has droplets of water all over his body. They shine like gems.
THE LITTLE BOY WHIMPERS
“Pozhalusta, tyotya…” Please, missus.
HIS NOSE IS RUNNY
Slow, hanging drips. The mucus stays on his upper lip. It shimmers like crushed diamonds.
“…I’m drowning…” he mewls.
OH NO
I’m pressed against the wall, all quiet, all eyes.
The bunk shifts.
SHE’S UP TOO
“That’s Dima,” Tanya chaffs, “the old lady’s son.”
“…from floor six?” I’m shivering now.
“Yes, yes, yes, you dumb ass, blyad!” Tanya says.
DIMA TAKES A STEP TOWARD OUR BUNKS
“Dimochka,” Tanya makes her voice high and strange.
“You wanna play?” she chirps. “Let’s play, malish.”
Tanya punches my top bunk. “Hey, Olga, play with Dima!”
I AM SHAKING MY HEAD INTO SMALLNESS
No, no, no thanks.
THE TOUCH GAME
“Dimochka’s just looking for a little touch. Isn’t that right, malish? Except that Dimochka’s touch—” Tanya lets out a thick laugh.
I WANNA PLAY WITH MISSUS OLGA
Dima pipes up. His words crystallize out of his mouth and make the air sting.
OUCH
I squint because my eyes are tingling.
COME PLAY
Tanya shouts.
WAIT
I’m clutching my wrists into my neck and turning my head into the wall.
FUCKING PLAY WITH DIMOCHKA
Tanya’s banging on my bunk.
My hands are tucked tightly between my thighs. The right still sore from the guard’s baton. The pain pulses into the left. I squeeze them closer. They share the pain.
DIMA STARTS RUNNING TOWARD ME
His whole body lifts up as his legs cycle in the air.
MY HANDS
My hands are the limbs I’m losing in evolution—
MY HANDS
Slip out from between my thighs like a ribbon being unknotted.
HE’S HOVERING AT MY BUNK
His wet hair, touching the cement ceiling. He opens his mouth and smiles with all his teeth. His smile prickles my eyes. I shut them.
MY HANDS ARE CLASPED IN FRONT OF ME
It burns.
FIRE AND ICE
The heat between them.
THE HEAT BETWEEN THEM
It’s a solid thing.
I’M CLASPING A SOLID THING
“Open your eyes, missus,” the boy says.
My cheeks go numb and the tip of my nose stings.
EYES WIDE OPEN
Hands closed shut.
I look down at them.
He’s looking there too.
We are both looking at my hands.
THE KITCHEN KNIFE
I’m holding.
The boy shows all his teeth at once.
THE BOY
A thousand diamonds.
MAKE HIM STOP
Razors. Shoreline. Sunlight.
THE LAST WAVE
Seagulls cut stones with their voices.
MY HANDS RAISED ABOVE MY HEAD
“Once, twice, thrice, missus!” the boy is screaming.
THE KNIFE RAISED ABOVE MY HEAD
Make him stop!
THE PENDULUM
Oh no. Oh no.
THE KNIFE
