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The land is throwing me off
even as I cling to her

Grow up, she says, I’m not your mother
Stop that borrowed gender

Still, I can follow the row of hills

a duckling imprinting
on a robot duck (can happen)

but the land is alive more ways
than me, so I must be the robot

following the real mothers
who are multitudes of all genders
like casuarinas, lichen, turtles
ants, yams, outcrops
still water, sparks, coals

I watch and machine learn
I cry ugly duckling tears about
my system,
excuses

The lands have their real children
They look beyond me, shrug

I fall down a hillside
gaze back in need and love
with my constructed eyes

I study the multitudes to pass on
when I grow up and have
robot ducklings of my own



Merri Andrew writes poetry and short fiction, some of which appears in Five on the Fifth, Daikaijuzine, AntipodeanSF, and Baby Teeth. She lives on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country in Canberra, a city hiding in the sub-alpine bushland of Australia. Merri can be found on Twitter @MerriAndrewHere.
Current Issue
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
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
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