Size / / /

The white moths that fly at night are believed to be

the souls of the dead.

I have wondered about them;

what they do

with eternity on their hands.

The uselessness of time

at the end

of breakfast, bedtime, dinner and sunrise.

Perhaps they rearrange the dust,

snip the hems

of each falling snowflake.

Perhaps they come back, drawn

toward our lights,

small warmths unconscious of the sky

snug in their own purposes,

never measured

against the cold glory of moonlight

dropping its white petals just outside

the locked window.

They beat on the glass with their papery wings.




Jacqueline West's work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Chizine, The Pedestal Magazine, Aberrant Dreams, Mythic Delirium, and . She currently lives, writes, and teaches English in eastern Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Thou Shalt Not. . ., a collection of crime and horror stories.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: