Size / / /

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
14 Apr 2025

back-legg-ed, puppy shaped and squirmy
the pastor is a woman / with small birds living in the hollows of her eyes.
Strange Horizons
On June 4th, we will be opening for speculative fiction novelette submissions between the word count of 10,000 and 18,000 words. We will cap submissions at 300.
Strange Horizons
On November 3rd, we will be opening for speculative fiction stories written by Indigenous authors. We will be capping submissions at 500.
The formula for how to end the world got published the same day I married the girl who used to bully me in middle school. We found out about it the morning after, on the first day of our honeymoon in Cozumel. I got out of the shower in our small bungalow and Minju was sitting in bed, staring at her laptop.
In this episode of Strange Horizons at 25, editor Kat Kourbeti talks to Charlie Jane Anders about her Strange Horizons publications dating all the way back to 2002, charting her journey as a writer and her experience with the magazine over 20 years, as well as her love for community events and bringing people together.
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Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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Issue 10 Feb 2025
By: Alexandra Munck
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 27 Jan 2025
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