44 Lindsay Osborn – Artificial Solutions

Lindsay Osborn is a senior from La Porte, Indiana. She is pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies with a minor in Technical and Professional Writing.  “Artificial Solutions” is a poem written for her class, ENG-W 403: Advanced Poetry Writing.  Professor Brian Brodeur notes, “Lindsay Osborn writes with a rare satirical wit in poems that practice what Matthew Arnold referred to as “the criticism of life” that the best poems practice. Her razor-sharp intelligence, keen eye, and cultivated ear make for extraordinary, and extraordinarily fun, reading.”

Artificial Solutions

Hermit crabs all over the world, which scavenge shells as armour for their bodies,

are turning increasingly to plastic waste instead.

—BBC, 2024

The latest scuttlebutt

to reach the shore

claims its introverted occupants

have solved the coastal

housing crisis.

Vacant shells for mobile homes

are no longer just second-hand gifts

from departed gastropods.

Now, hermits scavenge for modern

homes of polyurethane.

Crustaceans rejoice!

The battle for natural

snail husks has been tempered.

Nestle into your plastic

domicile, courtesy of Nestlé.

Shun those show-offy oysters

and their pearlescent gleam—

Hermits, the world is your

incandescent light bulb:

all jagged glass and tungsten filaments.

Strut around in your

Coke-bottle asses

and your Tide-cap chaps.

Living, friends, is merely

temporary. Branding is for life.