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TPCReview Issue 002

Amanda Peren

maggot choreography

a maggot hatches beneath the mongolian sun
sustained on liquefied snowflakes
emboldened by an eternal supply of horse manure
beyond the ocean, in the spoils of new york city
the maggot’s distant cousins bathe gluttonously in sewage
nescient of a palate without the bitter aftertaste of man

in unblemished lands, clear of construction site pock marks
wings sprout in pale grass plains
freshly ordained pilots swirl deliciously in the air
eventually tiring and tethering themselves to predestined roles
one-sided rapture in testing boundaries of wild horses
tails swaying like an inviting game of double dutch
flies quickly honing the artful tactics of sibling vexation
i’m not touching you
i’m not touching you
the percussion of swats and whinnies driving millenia of rivalry

at twilight, the flies commune above the glassy lake
they rise in helixes and descend in drunken elation
simplicity in innate choreography
free from the magnetism of synthetic nectars
room temperature hot dog water and curdled oat milk lattes
rather here, unrestrained by the limiting nature of four walls
a fly is welcome to submit to exhaustion on the pebbled shore
its final craving fed by the hypnotic pull of the mongolian moon
death and tides a constant
when all else wavers.

Raised in Northern Virginia, Amanda Meimei Peren, made her way up the coast and graduated from Long Island University Brooklyn, securing a dual bachelor’s degree in both Urban Adolescent Education and English Literature, with a focus in BIPOC Young Adult Fiction. She continued her studies at Virginia Tech, where she received a MA in English Education, before finally embarking on her teaching career. Since 2023, Amanda has been living in Taiwan as a Bilingual Home Economics teacher at the Middle School level. In her free time, she continues to create various works of Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry. She has been a member of the Taipei Poetry Collective since early 2025. As an emerging writer, her works can be found in Off Season Magazine and now presently, the second issue of TPCReview.