Size / / /

She touched her round organic limb

again, under the boardwalk, as the

harrowing strains of the Marsalis quintuplets

shook dust from the cracks and dimpled

in quivering stationary rings

the surfaces of tidal pools.

Yes, it was her karma to love the one woman

worthy of her attention.

The needle was her benediction,

alcohol lamp her matron of honor,

and by the time she emerged

in the bloody sunset

she was gravid with her child.

Oh God! She was perfection,

casting into the city her thousand

hungry eyes and ears and digesting

our emotions to feed her future.

She never forgot where she came from

even when the city became a brittle husk.




David C. Kopaska-Merkel won the 2006 Rhysling Award for a collaboration with Kendall Evans, edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine, and has edited Star*Line and several Rhysling anthologies. His poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. A collection, Some Disassembly Required, winner of the 2023 Elgin Award, is available from him at jopnquog@gmail.com.
Current Issue
14 Jul 2025

This exhibition presents pieces from our permanent collection that are rarely displayed together, in order to illuminate the life of one of our most celebrated early rulers, Nizararuddin Zafer Abu Hassan Mohammed, better known as Prince Nizar.
There’s a ghost stuck up my nose. Has to be.
The faeries spied you with the peasant boy
One of the recent bright spots in the world of speculative short fiction publishing is the rebirth of Fantasy Magazine. Yes, Fantasy is back, published under the Psychopomp umbrella with co-editors Arley Sorg and Shingai Njeri Kagunda at the helm. (You can read more about how this all came about at Psychopomp and support the zine by signing up for a subscription.)  “Silence Starved and Swallowed” by Sydney Paige Guerrero from Fantasy 97, the first issue of Fantasy in this incarnation, is a devastating, darkly gleaming story about grief and sadness. Guerrero describes how our inability to put our emotions
Wednesday: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh 
Friday: A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry 
Issue 7 Jul 2025
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Issue 16 Jun 2025
By: Ariel Marken Jack
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 9 Jun 2025
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Issue 2 Jun 2025
By: R.B. Lemberg
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 26 May 2025
Issue 19 May 2025
By: Elle Engel
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 12 May 2025
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