Size / / /

Content warning:


What was he saying, nā?
the fishmonger elbows her friend:

Red-slippered Grandma Zhuāng
You know, every Monday I bring a basket roadside:
cabbage pumpkin lotus wood-ear okra ginger yam, for her
chair is rebuffed by narrow market rows, wheels snagged in grates

Yes, generous cook, unschooled beautiful calligraphy,
her parents wouldn’t kētóu to new soldiers,
careful dresser even after what happened?

Then or now? That’s why I’m telling you,
Zhuāng penned a singular fate.
Monday she went missing

before coming to market,
rolling, hā

surely on her way to market
Ending up 10 kilometers away, surveyors
heard shrieks upstream of the suspension bridge

suspension bridge where Móshénzǐ lurks?
the demon boy summoned a fog my own brother stumbled through
his blue-tan skin releases narcotic alkaloids or pheromones driving
animals mad, into trees and up crags

yes, they found Zhuāng there, downslope of the road, yet
steep meters above her wheelchair neatly parked riverside

they’d see her red silk ribbons
good-luck streamers fit for tricycle handlebars

See, mysterious how she came there
As though Móshénzǐ himself carried her

out of the gully or into the woods?
I’d dare,
Móshénzǐ might either, draw her up like my brother to
catch grasshoppers slap dung fuel disks scar her flesh with moon peach hearts

Zhuāng has no memory
deviating from the market, descending or ascending slopes,
impossibly, just a little dehydrated,
voice a bit gruff,
not even scuffs to her red slippers

impossible ō

Oh (dramatic pause)
walked right up the slope
no wheelchair needed

Wa!
save you stress when next she comes to market.

 

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


Editors: Poetry Department.

Copy Editors: Copy Editing Department.

Accessibility: Accessibility Editors.



L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University, a dog pillow at home, or otherwise searching Taipei for ghosts and vegan treats. L. has a rhetoric PhD, Twitter, Instagram, and creative writing published or forthcoming in Autostraddle, The Dodge (Best-of-the-Net nominated), Gordon Square Review, Neon Door, New Orleans Review, The Dread Machine, and elsewhere.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Issue 1 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: