Size / / /

Content warning:


a ghazal

I’ll tell you all the ways a movie scene can slice
open your mouth. The two antagonists slice

a bear’s throat for survival and you call that
heroic. The main character holds up a slice

of red velvet cake from her roommate’s party
and dumps it on a mattress. Even the slice-

of-life movies cannot distinguish capitalism
from cannibalism. An ongoing war slices

into your country and people are still eating
their pasts in penthouses, devouring unsliced

bodies of cash. The protagonist’s love interest
mistakes the Lunar New Year red for a slice

of his Valentine heart, comedic in all the ways
an apocalypse can be. An earthquake slices

the scene shut, like a snapdragon that blooms
in early March. Movies can be deceptive: slice

them open and you will find the same post-
credits scene of drunk-dazed girls slicing

peaches in the backyard. A dragonfly whirs
past and one of the girls accidentally slices

its wings off with her knife. To know of
violence is to somersault into it, slick

like the metal of a blade. Look, your
mouth is growing fangs, ready to slice.

You will become un-humaned, trapped
in a movie scene that will become a slice

of your life. I am not surprised by how
it all ends: a montage reversed into slices.

 

 

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Marta Malinowska during our annual Kickstarter.]



Jessica Kim is the author of L(EYE)GHT. She has been recognized as the 2022 West Regional Youth Poet Laureate and National Youngarts Finalist in Writing (Poetry). Her poems appear in POETRY Magazine, NPR's All Things Considered, The Adroit Journal, and others. She studies computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

Djinndroid 
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Departure: New Selene Station 21:56 
Lunar enby folks across here
The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part One 
The 2024 Ignyte finalists for Best Novel collectively exemplify the “vibrancy and diversity” that the awards seek to celebrate.
The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
The books shortlisted for the 2024 Ignyte Best Novel Award emphasise the role of co-operative action in addressing the problems faced by their characters—and their readers.
The Butcher’s Heart 
“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
Load More