Size / / /

Content warning:


When my skin touches salt water, I hear magic.
Bring me, please, a sun-touched cockle shell.
Magic sings in me, low and deep, in the voice
of the whale. Bring me honey and a key.
Dress me in kelp, braid my hair with seagrass.
Wait. Pour milk down my spine. Mother whales,
can you taste it? Your children drink it too.
Call my name, leviathans, in your language.
Paint me with salt mud and clay.
Your years match mine. We each are mothers,
then wise women, then fisher queens.
Wait. Hear the waves. This too is a rite.
I do not know why you sing, but you do.
I know why I sing. I have learned this magic.
Place driftwood in my left hand, bread in my right.
Breathe. Nothing smells like this.
When the whale breaches in the harbor,
then the tidepool of my power fills.
My mother was a whalewitch, and now I sing.

 

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from R. N. Adducci during our annual Kickstarter.]



Devin Miller is a queer, genderqueer cyborg and lifelong denizen of Seattle, with a love of muddy beaches to show for it. Their poetry received an honorable mention in the 2022 Rhysling Awards and once appeared on a King County Metro bus terminal. You can find Devin under a tree, probably, or at devzmiller.com.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Friday: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen 
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
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More