Size / / /

for Erik Amundsen

Over the damp-blackened slates, the harbor

lights douse and sizzle in the sloping rain,

heaps of cables, netted crates, sacks of grain

unloaded under oilskins; no ship's master

on these docks, signaling like a wrecker,

but what swarms to my lantern in a skein

of foxfire and the bruised scent of vervain

could never drown: I glimpse them only after

their faces have fragmented into earth,

their coldly limned bones, leaf-rags of clothing

restitched, enfleshed within this storm-shot gleam

where my fingers cramp with winter and warmth

invisibly: this candle guides none living,

only the ghosts of children through my dreams.




Sonya Taaffe reads dead languages and tells living stories. Her short fiction and poetry have been collected most recently in As the Tide Came Flowing In (Nekyia Press) and previously in Singing Innocence and Experience, Postcards from the Province of HyphensA Mayse-Bikhl, Ghost Signs, and the Lambda-nominated Forget the Sleepless Shores. She lives with one of her husbands and both of her cats in Somerville, Massachusetts, where she writes about film for Patreon and remains proud of naming a Kuiper Belt object.
Current Issue
25 Nov 2024

Pranams to my most dear and queer Strange fam. We are finally at the penultimate episode of this show and I do not know how to process this. I’m scared. I’m hungry. I’m sleepy. LIFE IS SO CONFUSING! I’m not too sure what to expect but as we have seen, literally anything can happen in this story. Anyway, Let's go! Let’s start with a completely unreliable recap of our story and cast of characters. There are the Wilsons who are dead, the mayor Hugh, his inappropriate wife Anna, a handful of assorted professors, an annoying doctor and poor Janet who
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In the 5th episode of SH@25, editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with author E.M. Faulds to chat about her 2022 story, Broken Blue, combining Eldritch horrors with mundane moments, writing female characters, and finding the strength to write during hard times.
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Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
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