Size / / /

I come to you from a realm of incessant storms,

gowned in the shreds of an inadequate umbrella.

What happened to my hair? It kept getting snarled

into the filigree hilts of godmothers' wands, or stuck

in the icing on half-baked cottages, or wound

itself into nooses around already-netted fish. There

was nothing to do but to crop it all off. Loose, it promptly

smothered an acre of corn. When even the crows

can't wait to see you gone, it's time to shove

what's left of your life into a walking shroud

and cobble together what you can

from the pelts and bones of out-raced rabbits,

the better to greet whatever's next in store

with the treadlessness of a ghost, but even when

my fingertips graze only stone and tin,

my breath bruises fruit and my words ruin wells.

I've been told there are cures, but what I've heard

always ends with a witch in the fire

or the pond. I won't do that

to someone else's grandmother. And now

you have someone to blame for next week's blight

and next month's horror—I

am marching away even as you slam your door.




Peg Duthie shares a house in Nashville, Tennessee, with a brown dog and a piano tuned a half-step high. Her poems have appeared in Dead Mule, flashquake, and elsewhere, and she owes Heisenberg's ghost a round. You can find her poem Some Houseguests Can't Be Helped in our archives.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
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
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More