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It’s not about knowing
the right words to say.

Memories have permanence,
tattooed anchors.

Our dearly departed live

in cooking smells,
in the iridescence of abalone shells,
in knotted nets.

If we are careful,
patient and persistent,
we can tell the dead:

“Thank you” or “I miss you.”

I heard only silence

until my grandmother,
who drowned six years earlier,

spoke one simple word
through the hiss of searing fish:

Sail.

When I failed to make the spring’s crew
I cried a hurricane.

My tears flooded the docks,
washed the fishermen away.

Before I could sink, the captain tossed
a lifeline.

“None of this will matter when you are old.”

It never occurred to me that
seventeen was not forever.

Winds die. Horizons end.

If I were a sailor, I’d be the lonely type.

My letters home sealed in
empty rum bottles.

If I were a sailor, I’d surf on waves,
hanging on to sly mermaids.

If I were a sailor, I’d sing:

Tick tock goes the clock.
The night is old,
the wet air cold.
No more time for doubt,
the sun is set and gone.
Distant shores roll up,

I sail on and on and on.

They say you can’t choose
family,

but anyone who has turned themselves
out to tide knows better.

When my brother enlisted, I replaced him.
When my parents weren’t home, I left.

I found a man at the pier and called him husband.
I saw a woman swimming alone and named her wife.

Little cats and ship rats make excellent children.
They eat home cooked dinners and keep their ears clean.

My new family never asks
who and where and why.

We sway. We light
bonfires on shifting dunes of sand.

Ship shape,
first mate,
I’m sailing,
I’m sailing.

Hard gale,
fantail,
I’m bailing,
I’m bailing.

Scud dash,
rock crash,
I’m praying,
I’m praying.

Slick deck,
keel wreck.

All souls lost at sea.

When we seek our ancestors
we bring touchstones;

beloved belongings     rope
past to present.

We bake bread, we place
flaming pyres on unsettled waters.

My grandmother came from a far away land.
Her stories were oceans of brine and grass.

She worked in the kitchens of her landlord,
slept in hay,
sang on the shore.

If I were a sailor,
I would build a ship to travel time,

to feel the same salty winds that
swept her hair, taught her the secrets of

speaking with the dead.



Kathryn Allan is an academic editor, independent scholar, and writer. She is co-editor (with Djibril al-Ayad) of Accessing the Future (a disability-themed SF anthology), editor of Disability in Science Fiction, and the inaugural recipient of the Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship.
Current Issue
29 May 2023

We are touched and encouraged to see an overwhelming response from writers from the Sino diaspora as well as BIPOC creators in various parts of the world. And such diverse and daring takes of wuxia and xianxia, from contemporary to the far reaches of space!
By: L Chan
The air was redolent with machine oil; rich and unctuous, and synthesised alcohol, sharper than a knife on the tongue.
“Leaping Crane don’t want me to tell you this,” Poppy continued, “but I’m the most dangerous thing in the West. We’ll get you to your brother safe before you know it.”
Many eons ago, when the first dawn broke over the newborn mortal world, the children of the Heavenly Realm assembled at the Golden Sky Palace.
Winter storm: lightning flashes old ghosts on my blade.
transplanted from your temple and missing the persimmons in bloom
immigrant daughters dodge sharp barbs thrown in ambush 十面埋伏 from all directions
Many trans and marginalised people in our world can do the exact same things that everyone else has done to overcome challenges and find happiness, only for others to come in and do what they want as Ren Woxing did, and probably, when asked why, they would simply say Xiang Wentian: to ask the heavens. And perhaps we the readers, who are told this story from Linghu Chong’s point of view, should do more to question the actions of people before blindly following along to cause harm.
Before the Occupation, righteousness might have meant taking overt stands against the distant invaders of their ancestral homelands through donating money, labour, or expertise to Chinese wartime efforts. Yet during the Occupation, such behaviour would get one killed or suspected of treason; one might find it better to remain discreet and fade into the background, or leave for safer shores. Could one uphold justice and righteousness quietly, subtly, and effectively within such a world of harshness and deprivation?
Issue 22 May 2023
Issue 15 May 2023
Issue 8 May 2023
Issue 1 May 2023
Issue 24 Apr 2023
Issue 17 Apr 2023
Issue 10 Apr 2023
Issue 3 Apr 2023
Issue 27 Mar 2023
Issue 20 Mar 2023
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