Size / / /

Content warning:


We had never seen naked men do what we did.

He’d come to my house, the sun bright on his small body.

In the kitchen, iyemi stirred the soup. From the cracked walls,

Lizards nodded away the world’s secrets.

I winked at him in sheer joy.

In the farm, we stripped naked, our bodies small gifts of innocence.

The birds, thousands of them mocked us with their hymns, &

The sky so clear if we peered hard, we’d see our reflections

in it. While he bore the hole, narrow as an escape, I knit

a wire onto the tip of a fresh branch. This was our second

trap in a month. All the animals were wise. To survive, we’re told,

Animals kill animals. For fun, we lay traps, pray the animals

into them. Thinking of it now, the memory mocks everything:

The sun glittering on my friend’s spinal cord

as he dug, my skin a wet tub, our little penises swinging

as we worked. I marvel at how the nudity of man can mean luck,

not shame, not sex; but luck, innocence, & meager desire.

We had never seen naked men do what we did but we did it.



Nome Emeka Patrick is a blxck bxy; graduate of English language and Literature. His works have been published or are forthcoming in POETRY, Poet Lore, Puerto Del Sol, The Fiddlehead, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee, he is super shy, but say hi on Twitter: @paht_rihk.
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18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
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