Size / / /

Content warning:



Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?
—M.C. Escher

We replicated your experiments
in some elementary school classroom,
made delicate patterns
from circled     & inverted forms.

Now you come to me
a gifted black     & white postcard,
your staircases looping themselves
with     infinite     regularity.

How do_
                    you_
exist?                     draw an object
                    _that
_doesn’t

Pencil me     a space cubby, please,
a time hole where a woman could fit.
I tuck     nothing-fluff in after me,
seal edges & delete evidence of my escape,
roll until     ink jet black     covers all.

You can tessellate my leavings,
should you     find any that matter.

Otherwise,
let     me     be     junk
that flies to outer limits
where a man with (too many) arms
hugs himself, disappears.



Stefani Cox is a poet and writer with an MFA from UC Riverside. Her poetry chapbook, The Stars With You, was published by Cooper Dillon Books in 2022. Stefani’s work has also appeared in The Rumpus, LeVar Burton Reads, and Lost Balloon, among other outlets. Find her on Twitter @stefanicox or her website stefanicox.com.
Current Issue
29 Apr 2024

The Lightning Road cuts far across the Cosmos, a streak of dazzling gold amidst the star-studded void.
daily you suppress it and ride the shame / like a surfer rides a monster wave,
somersaulting in continuous turns
two wolves lope / behind the Atlantic
The thing is; I don’t set out to write neurodivergent characters. I write people – fictional people who are drawn from the people around me, the way I experience the world, and my understanding of these experiences. Too bad if other people refuse to afford my experiences as being real or relatable.
Friday: Song of the Mango and Other New Myths by Vida Cruz-Borja 
Issue 15 Apr 2024
By: Ana Hurtado
Art by: delila
Issue 8 Apr 2024
Issue 1 Apr 2024
Issue 25 Mar 2024
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Load More