Spring 2022
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JANUS Williston’s Visual and Literary Arts Magazine
Volume 69 Spring 2022
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JANUS Editors in Chief: Sarah Markey & Lily McAmis Faculty Advisor: Sarah Sawyer
Members: Pippa Berry Sophie Edmunds Zah Ewen Elsa Frankel Max Graff Andie Kinstle Hana Naughton Lupe Oloyede Samantha Yunes
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Table of Contents Untitled (Cover) : Lily McAmis Ode to the Island : Pippa Berry : 5 Blue and White Mittens : Andie Kinstle : 6 You SIT! : Lily McAmis : 8 Fraction of a Flower's Happy Heart : Chris Anderson : 9 Fallen angel – treachery on the way to mardi gras – I miss you. : Melody Pan : 10 Green Suburu (a reflection inside my sweaty palms): Pippa Berry : 1o How I Met Your Mother – details or whispers? (Whiskers? Shhhh) : Amara Rozario : 11 Heartstring Lover : Chris Anderson : 12 Peculiar, Uncommon, and Perfect Reflections : Maya Libraro :13 Dani Night Funnies : Dore Adeosun : 15 Untitled : Dore Adeosun : 16 A Mental Racetrack : Louisa Coughlin : 17 All Stand : Edward Bergham : 17 Floating ; Sophie Edmunds : 18 The Whale In My Window : May Nguyen 18 A bright reason to justify : Lily McAmis: 19 The Greek “Innie” ; Lucy Latham: 20 The Joy of Moving in a Sequence Well ; Edward Bergham: 21 Watermellon : Andie Kinstle: 22 Letter to my ex: Lucy Latham: 23 Thursday Night Saddies : May Nguyen: 24 Fin. : Zah Ewen: 24
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Ode to the Island Pippa Berry
When we were twelve, We ran down the dock Caution to the wind, No care of the clock Summer sun on our baby faces We drift along with the breeze Tying floss around our wrists July flew by with ease Before the boys and the bones And the broken car Before the girls who laughed And music at the bar We cry to each other Around midnight fires About our grades and fears And our darkest desires Seeking revenge as cold As the ice cream we stole Heal our chapped lips with kisses Where the salt took its toll Holding hands and each other, We'll make it through somehow Our afternoons on old boats Letting legs drift off the bow School years stay separate We'll never meet the "other" friends But the island is ours, Each other's till summer ends
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Blue and White Mittens Andie Kinstle My cousins’ nana knit me a pair of blue and white mittens. I don't know if they are wool or yarn, but they are soft on my fingers and fit my hands just right. She used to work at my town’s library, and when my elementary school class would cross the street and stomp our small feet all the way over to check out books none of us would ever finish, I made sure to tell everyone we were related. I don’t know when my cousins’ nana learned to knit, or who taught her. I don't know if it’s been one of her hobbies for a while or if it’s something new. I remember my great grandmother telling me once that she started to crochet doilies because it kept her fingers going. She used to work as a telephone operator, and she loves romance novels and cardinals. I can't remember the last time I saw her. My grandfather likes to bird watch, and he keeps a pair of binoculars in the closet next to the house’s front door. I imagine him sitting outside in the summer, waiting to see if any hummingbirds will fly to the red feeders. I used to hop along a stone path that connects the front porch to the driveway with no shoes on, and it was a game to try to avoid the grass. My mother and grandfather and grandmother would sit in the wicker chairs, and I didn’t care about anything. Now that grandmother is gone, and the hummingbird feeders might be too, but maybe not. I wonder what my grandfather thinks when he sees cardinals. I used to knit when I was younger, but I’ve long forgotten how, and I don’t think I can learn again. I wanted to knit myself a matching hat and scarf, but I gave up before they were ready for wear. I used to bring my yarn ball and needles with me to school in fourth grade, determined to finish. My other grandmother ended up finishing them for me and I think I still have them both somewhere, or maybe I got rid of them during one of those many times I’ve taken to my room with big trash bags. 6
The hat was too large for my head and made me look like that friend of Strawberry Shortcake. I wonder if my grandmother remembers that hat. She used to sew clothes for my sister’s and my American Girl Dolls. She made one coat that was black and white checkered and had a cork as a button. I remember her sewing doll clothes at my house one time when she visited. I watched her stick a needle between her tongue and teeth, as if for safekeeping. I told her that wasn’t safe, and I don’t remember what she said. My sister got the checkered coat, but I put it on my dolls anyways. For Christmas, I gave my sister a gray hat with a pom-pom on the very top. She said she liked it and I was glad. Maybe if I had asked my cousins’ nana or my great grandmother or my other grandmother to teach me to knit or crochet or sew when I was younger, I would have made the Christmas-gift hat. But I bought it, and a stranger taught me how to knit, and my cousins’ nana made me blue and white mittens.
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You SIT! Lily McAmis
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Fraction of a Flower's Happy Heart Chris Anderson An apple tree looms over me The creeping mildew and the curled leaves Brown spots on fruits, white fuzz on branches The pale bark, the dry apple seeds The tree was dying Everything in here was dying The dull silence buzzing in the air No more smiling bees, or shining light Only the memories of vibrant petals Of swelling buds Of floral bloom The shattered pieces of the past All the colors we created, paled down to nothing Maybe some faint reminiscence of a distant fragrance While we lay like dead bugs and twigs Under this lifeless figure, corroding, corroding Into the dirt, the chilling sensation Of worms eating me away, the disgusting palpation of their paws We can’t even scream or shout; just slowly descending into degeneration, decomposition Lying there, without a sound, under an apple tree
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Fallen angel – treachery on the way to mardi gras – I miss you. Melody Pan
Green Suburu (a reflection inside my sweaty palms) Pippa Berry It used to be my dad's. He let me sit in the front seat as a special treat when my legs were too short for the soles of my jelly sandals to touch the floor. Together, we would drive to hockey games in Southern Vermont, passing trees the same vivid shade as the car's exterior. My mom convinced him to let me drive it to school when I turned 16. She insisted on the "Student Driver" magnet on the back. "It'll be in good company on her campus," she told my dad. It's true that there are a few identical cars parked behind the library. I pass one just like mine on the mountain some mornings, the same make, model, and color. I wonder if its driver notices mine like I notice theirs. I've never been much of a car person. Once, someone asked me if I drive manual or automatic and I couldn't answer (95% sure its automatic). But still, when I heard the unmistakable crunch when it hit the back of the Blue Honda, I cried for my Green Subaru, the one that's never failed to take me where I need to go. 10
How I Met Your Mother – details or whispers? (Whiskers? Shhhh) Amara Rozario – (written in the style of Emily Dickinson) I Heard the weeping willow Sigh Mourning unabashedly For a faceless Specter had me in A Chokehold - so to speak I lit three candles for the Dead One for My Lost life The Lady woke and walked in vain Till She was out of Sight I Feel her coldness in me now Her reflection in the Mirror But the Purgatory of lost souls Is No Longer here My Love - she lends herself to me Adjourning our Goodbye But I Chose my fate all those years ago Like a Moonflower - I must die
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Heartstring Lover Chris Anderson
My insanity reads as a desperate rage To the child once encaged by the sun The rising tides, moon, solarifies days mist Faces, question, red string tied laces, wild breaths entangle The myth that we all used to hate; The grand quest of finding truth in us, paced footsteps on a pointless chase, the search of faith or fate or the vase of my heart or the space in between us, the gap that never closed, the clear case of thoughtful crime of translucent skin of mine and yours, friend or foe or slow dancing lovers, always on your tip toes, take or borrow, my ego of a sculptor’s make Low rides and high rise for safe and sound Shake my hands and sow my lungs I have prayed and pondered on lonesome nights and let our fingertips dance away, my insanity is now seen as vain, darling, rage on, rage on, rage on, rage on…
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Peculiar, Uncommon, and Perfect Reflections Maya Libraro I like to believe I find poetry in the world's most unique parts I find it in the day that we painted my walls It was my idea, but you helped We painted my doorway, we painted my floor, we painted the ceiling and soon our hands and faces were covered in paint, but we didn’t care because every time I looked at the paintings, I would think of you I find it in the way the sun hits my wall at a certain time in the afternoon It's usually around 4:30 when the sun is that golden color and sometimes the window makes small rainbows scatter everywhere When the glow is soft like honey on the tile I find it in the collection of seashells I have stowed away under my bed Safely stored in my mom's hat box, my assortment of mother of pearl and Argonaut shells grew over the years, thanks to my Nonna who picked the best shells in Betty's Bay Some days I think about choosing a lucky few of the shells and stringing them along as if they were beads, so I could wear them like a necklace I would never do that, though I find it in the night my father was taken from me When my soul was carried away with him by men in tinted sunglasses and dark suits, and with them a part of my heart and a piece of my mind tucked in his pocket The way my heart shattered like a wine glass on a hardwood floor when I heard the news We can’t fix him this time I find it in the way those words mocked me with their sweet giggles And suffocated me with their shards dipped in defeat, and made me bleed I remember the night dad read us that story, I could have sworn it was about a unicorn but I'm having some trouble remembering right now In the way that I now wish I could go back and say to my dad all the things a 5-year-old should not ever know or ever say or ever think The more I think about it though, I am pretty sure it was it was about a unicorn The memory of you is my paper doll that I have brought into this world Made from scraps I pieced together desperately make something tangible You are like gripping sand, until eventually the sand slips through your fingers, and is gone, and you are only clutching dirt and air and grit 13
You are always there, and always will be, but never really were I find it in a clementine Who knew there were so many unknown parts to an orange fruit You bit down, peel and all, and the blood dripped from your chin and stained your teeth Your saucer eyes looked at me in despair and love I never loved you more than I did at that moment I find it in my mother In the way she listens to me yell and doesn’t yell back In the way that year after year, I blow out my birthday candles and wish I could look in the mirror and see her She is the moon, the strongest, greatest, and bravest woman I know What other force of nature would be able to move oceans? I find it in my sister, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen I remember the sticky night we tried to catch fireflies in some college town in New Jersey That night I decided that the one thing I wanted in life was to never lose you You are the wildest ocean, an untamable river, and the most breathtaking of sunsets all at once When one of the fireflies whispered in my ear love can never die Because you are my sister, I know this is true I find it in the souls of my best friends The kindest people I will ever know I find it in the days when snowflakes catch on your eyelashes The way the corners of your mouth turn up into a grin, even when you try and stop it I find it in the trees, the sun, the planets, and even in the stars too I find it in every single excruciatingly beautiful moment of my life I find it on the writing on the walls, the writing on the ceiling, the writing on the floor, and after all of this, after poetry and inspiration and words are flowing out of my eyes and my ears That is the day when I can finally call myself A poet.
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Dani Night Funnies Dore Adeosun
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Untitled Dore Adeosun
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A Mental Racetrack Louisa Coughlin A three-lane highway perfectly divided with specific lanes for each type. Many different speeds but they all flow together, and accident-free. Until one merges, then another, another, another, another, and one leaves. Now there’s trouble, overlap, crossing, and crashing. They ruin the lines, the structure the order. And here comes a race car, churning like the wind, from behind. But it cannot get through smoothly. Some speed up; others do the same. Before a second the entire flow flies forward. Racing out of control, accidents everywhere, throwing some out, pulling others in. Absolute chaos. Unfixable disaster. Yet this is still the most traveled road.
All Stand Edward Bergham For the all-important Psst' ta of the tab. Despite the safety of the sterilized steel vats There exists the earthy taste of the working man's thumb. Thick, black oil slides The sweet tar, molasses clogs my arteries. Makes me war For the taste of one more. By the can, the box, the crate. Its beautiful red, white, and blue makes my heart Beat askew 17
Floating Sophie Edmunds A farmhouse is on fire Fields around it are a golden blaze The scent of tobacco smoke fills the air And a girl flies above it all She drifts among the smoke and the screams But she does not die She is all alone in the endless sky Later, when all the ashes have floated away And the embers are washed out by rain The girl folds her wings And nestles her small frame against the corpses But when she gazes back up to the stars She is no longer alone There are silhouettes in the night Laughing, as they fly on their new wings The Whale In My Window May Nguyen
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A bright reason to justify
Lily McAmis
I used a lighter with no flint wheel and Came back to find burn holes in the silver linings of nights spent in a house with no bible: In a car with no sunroof and No god to be barricaded from, I cried for the moon. For a globe of light to disappear with as the window fogged up, For a bright reason to justify Wearing sunglasses in the dark To a recurring cast and curtain sequence each night. You'll believe in muscle memory When your shoulders surrender at the touch of a finger, When your bare feet hit the road before the engine roar is audible. A trip to the dump to stub it all out. A black trashbag to sunglasses To see, in blindness, your liability To the headlights that reflect off the back you turn as you watch, in stillness, your shadow dance the last three-pointed star.
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The Greek “Innie” Lucy Latham
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The Joy of Moving in a Sequence Well Edward Bergham I didn't realize that leaving kung-fu behind would haunt me. I assumed that other, bigger things would take the place of it in my life. Sitting alone doing homework late at night I am reminded that my body is honed weapon. So I go to the bathroom, and I move in a sequence, and I do it well. I have forgotten how many of the techniques that I practiced tirelessly go. I no longer remember how to preform my katas, or even my style specific bow for my hun-gar sai form. I sink deep into my horse stance and throw powerful kicks with muffled kiai's, trying hard not to wake up other people in the dorm. Two ninjas leap from behind the stalls throwing palm strikes at my head. I avoid and crescent kick both of them. Sometimes when I go back to my room, I will turn to something I own, and punch it hard, sinking my weight to deliver the full force of the blow. I often move around the bathroom of the dorm alternating between stances that are so close to me that I merely think what it feels like, and it happens. I imagine myself in the tournament hall, the eyes of the judges fixated on my every move, and my terrible, incorrect movement sequence, gives me joy.
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Watermelon by Andie Kinstle Today I learned that I can’t eat watermelon without thinking of my grandmother. I see my mother, my sister, and me sitting outside at her house, at the glass table just beyond the back door, soaking in each other’s company like you would rays from the sun. I was so focused on biting the slices of watermelon all the way up until my teeth hit the green rinds that the chatter around me became the distant noise of a summer afternoon. I can’t recall how little I was, if this muddled memory is from before or after the plastic, shallow kiddie pool my grandparents would keep in their backyard became too small to hold me. I used to feel so annoyed when my mother would bring my sister and me to visit. There was too much energy bouncing inside of me to be confined to the halls of their home, and I would always feel relieved when our visits were over, and I could return my attention to the various toys I played with as a child. Most of those toys were thrown away a few years later when we moved to a different neighborhood. In August, when we would visit my grandmother where she vacationed in New Jersey, my family would cram into the bottom floor of a small apartment, my grandmother the only one with her own bedroom. When I woke up each morning, the room I shared with my sister was filled with an airy glow, the morning sun filtering in through the room’s singular window. My grandmother could usually be found outside on the front porch, sometimes drinking coffee. The weather was so warm, and I ate lunch with my family around a small wooden table almost every day until we left for home. During one of the last times I visited her, she had trash bags of clothes spread out all over the living room floor. I left her house with an ankle-length red leather jacket that I am still too scared to wear. Now, it’s only my grandfather, and he visits my house a few times a week to eat dinner and talk. We haven’t had watermelon, but the weather is warming. Maybe we will eat it in the summer.
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Letter to my ex Lucy Latham
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Thursday Night Saddies May Nguyen
Zah Ewen 24
