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The minefields of New Earth
were left by careless giants,
she said.
But first, two illegal things.
One) when a pilot coming out
of slipspace pops into real
time too close to the planet
surface, explosions erupt
across the dark side like divorce
blows apart extended
family.
Two) I loved her even
though she smoked
cigarettes.
After One) the light side is
clogged with ash and debris
for a week, and apologetic
pilots, if they survive passing
through the atmosphere to
land, are treated like pariah.
Two) We met one of those
days, when the sunset
lasts from dawn until
dark. She had that
hangdog guilty look, so I
fed her lo-poi from the
ends of my chopsticks and
coveted the way noodles,
like smoke, curled
between her lips.
A pilot can get stripped of her
license for either, but it’s not her
fault, really, it’s the
terraformers of New Earth, who
made a planet that looks like
home but tries to kill you.
Which is the way love is,
destroying half your
world, by accident, while
the other keeps spinning,
not quite in sync
anymore.



Karen Bovenmyer earned her MFA in Popular Fiction from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program in July 2013. Some of the places her dark fantasy and scifi horror stories and poems have appeared are Bonnie Stufflebeam's Art & Words Show, Crossed Genres Magazine, and Abyss, & Apex Magazine. She is the Nonfiction Editor for Escape Artist’s new magazine Mothership Zeta—Issue 0 is currently available for download and Issue 1 will debut in October 2015.
Current Issue
25 Sep 2023

People who live in glass houses are surrounded by dirt birds
After a century, the first colony / of bluebirds flew out of my mouth.
Over and over the virulent water / beat my flame down to ash
In this episode of  Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan talk to critic and poet Catherine Rockwood about how reviewing and criticism feed into creative practice. Also, pirates.
Writing authentic stories may require you to make the same sacrifice. This is not a question of whether or not you are ready to write indigenous literature, but whether you are willing to do so. Whatever your decision, continue to be kind to indigenous writers. Do not ask us why we are not famous or complain about why we are not getting support for our work. There can only be one answer to that: people are too busy to care. At least you care, and that should be enough to keep my culture alive.
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