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I read about a Chinese scientist who found a mountain

just bursting with impressions

and indentations of things

that lived before there were bones.

I saw a drawing of an armored sea creature

three feet long, multi-legged,

mouth full of row on row of jagged plates.

A first predator, first nightmare, first symptom of madness.

Our ancestor was born in that same era,

in that same hot ocean;

a slippery little wormy thing

with the beginnings of a spine.




Jeff Jeppesen is an IT professional and writer living in Houston, Texas. His work has previously appeared in Potpourri, Strange Horizons, Everyday Weirdness, Everyday Poets, and The Houston Literary Review. He has work soon to appear in Illumen.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Lunar enby folks across here
Wednesday: The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
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
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
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