Issue 43

Eternal Questions

July 17, 2026 /

art by Soha Kabiri

by Hamed Soleiman Tabar
Translated from the Iranian by Ali Asadollahi

______________________________________

¹ Nude Deascending a Staircase




Observation
مشاهده‌گری


نشستن؛ روبروی آینه و
خیره‌گی به دوردست

آیا باز می‌آید؟
آنکه به تماشای خویشتن رفته…


*


Sleepwalking 
خوابگردی


پله‌پله می‌آید بالا این‌همه را بی‌پاگرد
می‌آید تا بگشاید دروازه‌ی پلک، خوابگرد
می‌بیند در خواب، خواب که تمام نمی‌شوند پله‌ها
و هم پرسش نخستین را
نشسته بر پله‌ی پسین


*


Echo
بازتاب

چگونه است سایه‌؟

بازتاب یک سوال؟
یا خود سوال دیگری که
آفتاب می‌کند از ما


*


Hallway dark
دالان تاریک

و زندگى:
که دالان سوالى بى انتهاست

· خاصه؛ عشّاق!

Hybrid, Issue 43

The mÖma Show & The Villa Occupation: A Celebration of the Temporary Museum of Memory Archeology

July 17, 2026 /

by bart plantenga with Mark Boswell

~

“The house turned out to be a magnet for objects, where things were valued for their peculiarity, instead of being consumed.”1

^{₁ Adilkno, Cracking the Movement: Squatting Beyond the Media, Autonomedia, 1994. Adilkno (Dutch: BILWET), Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge, was established in Amsterdam in 1983. https://thing.desk.nl/bilwet/Cracking/squatting.html.}

[Osnabrück,

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Interviews, Issue 43

The Two Worlds of Playwright L.B. Browne

July 17, 2026 /
```
photo by Olga Prudka
```
by John Kazanjian

On the eve of her trip to Mackinac Island, Michigan, I ask playwright and novelist L.B. Browne if her new Off-Broadway play, Safe House, reflects anything of her own experience growing up. She obfuscates: “As an artist, it’s difficult not to incorporate your formative years in your art, consciously or subconsciously.” For a moment, I consider pressing her, but instead, I wish her a safe trip. To some degree, I know the answer. Since 2019, we’ve been close friends. We met as students in The New School’s MFA in Creative Writing Program,
read more
Hybrid, Issue 43

Painkiller, Xaali’s Intervention, and Problem Child

July 17, 2026 /
```
art by Jean Wolff
```
by Chekwube Danladi

Painkiller

I was only meant to be in Lagos for one week, staying in an American hotel in Ikoyi

overlooking the lagoon. I was there to read poetry and teach a writing workshop on decolonizing

poetics at the British Council, no order to the chaos of the irony. And otherwise order in jollof

and pizza while avoiding any local probing aunties. Swim, cigarette, and Irish stout in the hotel

pool after dark.
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Issue 43, Poetry

$100 REWARD LEADING TO RETURN OF LOST BIRD

July 17, 2026 /
```
art by Virgil Suárez 
```
by Marc Weissman

If he perches on you or shows up please call Ellie immediately ANY TIME. -Ellie

And if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves. -A. R. Ammons

What if he shows up Ellie
but I don’t

What if I find him but he’s no longer
a starling
he’s a star a constellation
the wind

grown beyond recognition
into Horus falcon-headed
god of war sky and hunting

That feels too aggressive for a
songbird

We must find him with haste
he wasn’t ready for release

I pray for him and you and me
I don’t think I’m ready for another Sudanese war
or Shannen Doherty dead at 53
or inflation in the economic or cosmic sense
or the unlikely event your bird was caught
midair by hawk

smaller than a robin
bigger than a sparrow

Like so many posters of signs notices
missed connections
you unleash myth and
more questions

And if I find him
on Independence Day
with dark and light brown feathers
dark legs and black beak

by the blue eggshell
Ford Granada
his trauma
won’t rip me apart

And if I find him I’ll manifest
a dark cover over him
and all starlings
in and under the stars
lost and found
alighting
Marc Weissman is an East Williamsburg-based poet,
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Issue 43, Poetry

Embers

July 17, 2026 /
```
art by Trevor Cunnington
```
by Devin Wilson

We move like ghosts
through the house.

Glaciers glide past
each other in silence.

The low hum
of a submarine

in the distance.
The sound broken

makes. Cracks in black
ice echo across the life lake.

Wallpaper curling
we’ll never fix.

Someone should
empty the woodstove.

Take the bucket out back.
Be careful of the old canoe

and there’s a rusty wheelbarrow,
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