Size / / /

Content warning:



It begins with a shudder,
a small tremblor.
Then a slippage of faith.
Nothing big, you understand.
A disaster in the small.

Ace shivers, slides,
Jack’s knees give out,
A trio of deuces fail to thrive.
The Queen’s sceptre wavers.
The fall begins.

It becomes Biblical in moments,
deck dissolving, devolving
into a puddle of argument.
Who makes the first leap
will never be known.

But the cards abandon
the Ship of State,
fall into an ocean of regret.
We will find their skeletons
in the hereafter.

Priests and pundits
will pick over their bones.



Jane Yolen writes poetry for both children and adults. She is a past winner of the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Rhysling award for a short poem, Dwarf Star Award for poems under ten lines, as well as being named by the Association as a Grand Master of science fiction and fantasy poetry. She is a frequent poetry contributor to such genre magazines as Asimov’s, Mythic Delirium, and Goblin Fruit. She has over 370 books published, a huge number of them poetry. Her books have won the Caldecott, the Christopher Medal, the Jewish Book Award, and two of her stories were Nebula winners. Three of her books won the Mythopoeic Award. Last year, she was named a winner of the New England Public Radio’s Arts and Humanities Award. And her Skylark Award set her good coat on fire.
Current Issue
20 Mar 2023

Strange Horizons will be open to fiction submissions on April 26th, 2023, at 9 a.m. UTC! To keep our response times manageable and submission windows more frequent, there will be a 1,000-story cap on submissions.
It started with a bit of music, something no one else was even listening to.
My father’s favorite nebula, Lemon Slice, is named after his favorite dessert.
The Police are dancing under the red lights / without their heads
Monday: Full Immersion by Gemma Amor 
Wednesday: Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett 
Issue 13 Mar 2023
Issue 6 Mar 2023
Issue 20 Feb 2023
Issue 13 Feb 2023
Issue 6 Feb 2023
Issue 30 Jan 2023
By: Catherine Rockwood
By: Romie Stott
Podcast read by: Ciro Faienza
Podcast read by: Catherine Rockwood
Podcast read by: Romie Stott
Podcast read by: Maureen Kincaid Speller
Issue 23 Jan 2023
Issue 16 Jan 2023
Issue 9 Jan 2023
Strange Horizons
2 Jan 2023
Welcome, fellow walkers of the jianghu.
Load More
%d bloggers like this: