Size / / /

With me older and grown less whole.

With me weary and self-soiled.

And admittedly unaccountable.

Far here from home that never was my home.

Down dull yellow strands,

Down roiling yellowed beaches.

That grinding, elder flywheel of shattered memory.

The liminal tumult that breaks hope and dreams alike,

indifferent and in equal measure,

as if only so much granite.

Between the stone and the whirlpool

would I betray myself

in a guise a little less than shunned Circe's ire.

I would so sink the world.

But I alone would go a-foundering.

Swine and a woodpecker and heads of seven snarling dogs.

Too, these oddly placid lions

and wolves that show their throats.

I am all those, witch and bewitched.

Drowned and, likewise, drowning brine.

I am all those.




Caitlín R. Kiernan's novels include The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl: A Memoir. Her short fiction has been collected in several volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder, A is for Alien, The Ammonite Violin and Others, and Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One). She is a four-time nominee for the World Fantasy Award, an honoree for the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and has twice been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. Born in Dublin, Eire, she now lives in Providence, RI.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
Friday: Your Own Dark Shadow: A Selection of Lost Irish Horror Stories edited by Jack Fennell 
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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
Load More