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Where in summer the thirsty earth sucks up the sprinklers and the ground is turning green, the sky blue. Where somebody has stomped one of them into a lilac-colored jam nobody will touch, drying in the sun. Where the water mains making the harbor are surrounded by the white flurry of imported wings.

Where in autumn we make out in one-person cubicles, thunder pattering on the dome and the radio talking about the benefits of a perfect seam. Where company regs are ignored. Where careless spacesuits grow too thin on the backside or lose an elastic and nobody cares 'cause the air's been worked out.

Where in the first winter this planet has known, we're light enough to stay on top of the snow's thick crust. From this distance we can't hear the snow's crust breaking under their feet, but we know the sound and see their footsteps' deep blue shadows and their occasional bodies and try not to think about it.

In our dreams our bodies are lighter than they should be, our heads heavier, as though we've stared up at the sky for too long and can no longer tell whether our feet touch the ground or there's even any ground to touch, as if the sky just goes on and on.




Joanne Merriam is the publisher at Upper Rubber Boot Books. She is a new American living in Nashville, having immigrated from Nova Scotia. She most recently edited Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good, and her own poetry has appeared in dozens of places including Asimov's, The Fiddlehead, Grain, and previously in Strange Horizons.
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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