Size / / /

I open the refrigerator and instead of food
it is stocked with automatic weapons
and hand guns and ammunition.

I make love to my wife and find
that she has a third eye
where her navel should be.

I have a clock that makes a different noise every hour.
Sometimes it sings like a bird.
Sometimes it is a train pulling into a station.
At least once a day it is a bullfight or a shuttle launch.
I take it to a jeweler's to have it fixed.
He tells me not to fool with it or it will melt.

I have a giant flea for a pet.
It has little dogs running around on it.

When I turn on the TV the stereo comes on.
When I turn on the stereo the toaster heats up.
When I pop a slice of split-topped wheat into the toaster
the garbage disposal begins devouring itself.
I have all of this memorized.
It changes every day.

At the back of my walk-in bedroom closet
there is a giant zipper that runs
vertically from the floor to nearly the ceiling.
I have never touched it.
Believe me.


The author of twenty-six books, Bruce Boston has published in hundreds of magazines and anthologies, including Asimov's SF, Weird Tales, Pushcart Prize Anthology, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards anthology. In 1999 the Science Fiction Poetry Association honored him with the first Grand Master Award in its twenty-two year history. He would be delighted if you sent him mail.



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.
exposing to the bone just how different we are
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'.
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
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
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