Issue 79

Mukbang Diptych

by Alleliah Nuguid issue 79 Noodles glut the baking tray and the video’s frame: a meal meant for a largefamily heaped high and red as a grade-school volcano. Beyond it are two women. In the background: coupons secured to the fridge; obeisant row of herbs in plasticplanters. “We got ten packs here, and I am […]

1/12 SCALE

by Robin Gow issue 79 In my doll-house life, we eat onlythe plastic pie and the table-top lemons. You stand at the window for weekswhile I take a dry bath in the blue tub. I tell you I want to move to the city againwhich is a lie, I just want to test how far […]

Metamorphosis

by Joel Harris issue 79 Changes of shape, new forms, are the theme which my spiritimpels me now to recite.—Ovid, Metamorphoses Papa Bois, horned shepherd of the forest,reel me in as a carp to your ungulate grasp. Entrance me with your hallowed bull horn,drown my ears in the gurgle of Ortoire’s torrent that I may […]

Self-Portrait of a Grieving Mother

by Julia Ongking issue 79 i am told i resemble my mother.ah yi traces the mountainsof my cheeks, reminiscentof grandmother’s bangka sittingoff a bicolano shoreline. the fortune-teller cups my face,whispers into kongkong’sear. flashes a terse smileas she pauses at the roundedtip of a bulbous nose, says she has never quite seen anythinglike it. it is […]

It’s Not You

by Chris Wiberg issue 79 IN THE NEAR FUTURE, SOMEONE WILL invent a bomb that can bedisguised as a credit card. Everything gets smaller and more destructive,and just the thought of something is as good as it already happening. Andthen it will be a thing that exists in the world: compact, light, commonplace,undetectable. Nuclear. The […]