Size / / /

The lizards were everywhere

and so was the wind.

There was no way you could

keep either of them out

that hard spring.

No matter how swiftly

you shut the door,

the lizards and the wind

would slip inside

that hard spring.

Darting over the floor

with inhuman speed,

they were far too fast

for a novice human

predator such as you.

The lizards were like

lemmings rushing

blindly over a cliff side:

there was no way

they could survive inside.

You would eventually

find their bodies,

dead and desiccated,

beneath a desk or armchair.

And once under the coverlet,

centered on your sheet

carefully as if a draftsman

had placed it there.

But the wind never died

that hard spring.




Bruce Boston is the author of forty-seven books and chapbooks, including the novels The Guardener's Tale and Stained Glass Rain. His writing has received the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimov's Readers Award, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. You can read more about him at www.bruceboston.com and see some of his previous work in our archives.
Current Issue
16 Dec 2024

Across the train tracks from BWI station, a portal shimmered in the shade of a patch of tall trees. From her seat on a northbound train taking on passengers, Dottie watched a woman slip a note out of her pocket, place it under a rock, strip off her work uniform, then walk naked, smiling, into the portal.
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a body protesting thinks itself as a door out of a darkroom, a bullet, too.
In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.
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Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
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Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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