Size / / /

they meant you more than they meant themselves;
your hand upraised indicating the ironic vibrancy
of jupiter and venus, the line they made ending
at a rust-tinged dot that was mars; and sirius
like a bauble off orion's belt, the giant
red dot on the hunter's shoulder like a scar.

your voice was worn to a waver, like trying to hold steady
the binoculars which made a blur of observation.
later you were opened to sight, and you became the hidden bustle
of the beehive in your gut, a sick constellation of melanoma mapping you
which these words map against. these words, how weak, to hold you,
as you held me, in that moment before you became more starlight
than man, more mist-stain than mind; o weak words,
keep him, once more, once more, together, tonight.




Andrew Brenza lives and writes in the Philadelphia area with his wife and young son. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Shampoo, Glitterpony, Jellyfish, and/or, Sawbuck, and The Scrambler, among others.  He is obsessed with cold seeps, hot vents, and tidal pools.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
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