Size / / /

Content warning:


“Firebird, Stormbird” © 2023 by Dante Luiz

 

The storm that doused the firebird
acquired an essence of birdness
Over and over the virulent water
beat my flame down to ash
denying my rebirth, my voice, but watch now
for this one weird trick:
watch me rise
in the essence of indigo.

I am the inheritor of thaw
of meltwater frozen for millennia
jolted into this world’s violent heat;
Hear me, I am stormbird
made featherdrop by featherdrop
from the reawakened wave—
I am old and I’m angry
and wise and I wail
rage and electrical currents
across your every horizon

 

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



R.B. Lemberg (they/them) is a queer, bigender immigrant from Ukraine to the US. R.B. is an author of six books of speculative fiction and poetry, an academic, and a translator from Ukrainian and Russian. R.B.’s work has been shortlisted for the Le Guin Prize for Fiction, Nebula, Locus, Ignyte, World Fantasy, and other awards. You can find R.B. on Instagram at @rblemberg, Bluesky at @rblemberg.bsky.social, and at their website rblemberg.net.
Current Issue
12 May 2025

You saw her for the first time at your front door, like she wanted to sell you something or convert you. She had light hair and dark eyes, and she was wearing fatigues, which was the only way you knew that your panicked prayers of the last few minutes had not come true. “Don’t freak out,” she said. “I’m you. From—uh, let’s just say from the future. Can I come inside?”
Time will not return to you as it was.
The verdant hills they whispered of this man so apt to sin / chimney smoke was pure as mountain snow compared to him.
Wednesday: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson 
Friday: The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths 
Issue 5 May 2025
Issue 21 Apr 2025
By: Premee Mohamed
Podcast read by: Kat Kourbeti
Issue 14 Apr 2025
Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons
Issue 7 Apr 2025
By: Lowry Poletti
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 31 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Mar 2025
Issue 17 Mar 2025
Issue 10 Mar 2025
By: Holli Mintzer
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 3 Mar 2025
Issue 24 Feb 2025
Load More