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Do not take a stone from my shores;
don’t you think
I can feel my own bones
no matter where they go?

I’ll send my invisible sinews
after you,
threaded on the wind,
rise up out of the stone
you took as a mere souvenir
and teach you
the meaning of regret.

Bring my stones, my bones,
back to me;
leave them in the ritual lines
of the mazes your ancestors wrought,
the tattoo, the silent runes
that bind me here—

it’s your best chance
as you sail back away over the waves
to whatever useless, silent land
you came from—
you’d best know
that I’m alive,
that I’m the witch herself,
not some feeble, fleeting human,
but the land, the earth.

You’re adorable in your confusion,
your fear.
Come back.
I could just eat you up.



Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and son. Her prize-winning poetry has appeared in over fifty journals. For more about her work, including her poetry collections, The Gates of Never and Bounded by Eternity, please see www.edda-earth.com.
Current Issue
7 Oct 2024

The aquarium is different every time I die. Exhibits reshuffling like a deck of cards. The blood loss, though, that’s reliable.
i need lichen / to paint my exoskeleton in bursts of blue and yellow.
specters thawing out of the Northwest Passage like carbon from permafrost
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
  In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Christopher Blake's "A Recipe for Life, A Tonic for Grief" read by Emmie Christie. You can read the full text of the story, and more about Chris, here. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
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