Size / / /

I think about a bumper sticker I once saw:

"Picture Whirled Peas."

Perhaps I am to think of an ocean

of green legumes joining hands;

this is hard to do,

so let's start small.

I'll visualize instead pea soup shoved out of a can,

no water added yet,

clinging together en masse

as it stands upright in the microwave bowl,

waiting for me to add tapwater

and three minutes of electromagnetic flux.

Now I'm ready to start seeing the world:

a blue green portion of space,

turning on its slightly askew axis

as it tries to come together

in some sort of unified mix

of greenery, gravity, and water.

There, I've got it,

something also like stone soup:

enough to magically feed

all its creatures and renew itself.

No harder to picture, really,

than the whole mystery

of why we're on this ride to begin with,

clinging to a stone in space.




Duane Ackerson's poetry has appeared in Rolling Stone, Yankee, Prairie Schooner, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Cloudbank, alba, Starline, Dreams & Nightmares, and several hundred other places. He has won two Rhysling awards and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Salem, Oregon. You can find more of his work in our archives.
Current Issue
11 Nov 2024

Their hair permed, nails scarlet, knees slim, lashes darkly tinted.
green spores carried on green light, sleeping gentle over steel bones
The rest of the issue is on its way. We think.
In the 4th episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with tabletop game designer and SFF critic Kyle Tam, whose young career has taken off in the last few years. Read on for an insightful interview about narrative storytelling from non-Western perspectives, the importance of schlock and trash in the development of taste, and the windows into creativity we find in moments of hardship.
After the disaster—after the litigation, the endless testimony, the needling comments of the defendant’s counsel—there is at last a settlement, with no party admitting error, and the state recognizing no victim, least of all yourself. Although the money cannot mend any of the overturned things left behind, it can pay for college, so that’s where you go next.
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
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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
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