Size / / /

He is dying

to be a vegetarian, but his wife won't have it.

She slaps a steak, rare, on his plate.

He drools. Eat

she says. You can't fool me.

He desires her, but she won't let him

fuck her, afraid his dick might fall off.

He masturbates with forefinger and thumb.

She uses a vibrator, which one day

he finds in the john, and smells it,

then unzips, and smelling the plastic helps him along.

Everyone in bed but him, he flicks on a zombie movie.

These undead: stupid, bumbling, and their one-note

Brains. They eat brains, but need one, he thinks.

He starts to drool. Ashamed, he checks the fridge

and builds a salad: lettuce, onion, a slice

of eggplant, tomatoes, green pepper.

He can't watch the rest of the flick.

He switches to the weather channel. A blonde

is talking fast and waving her arms as she traces a front,

with high winds which will arrive

at the zombie's town soon.

The way the woman's breasts

hypnotize, the way clouds, wind, lines of latitude,

longitude, and words about barometric pressure

and dew point fall from her lips—it's poetry.

Of course, he unzips, and what the hell,

grabs it with his whole hand.

If it falls off, he won't have this problem

with desire anymore. Or wait. What about

the prostate? He needs info. No

encyclopedia, and the only computer's in his daughter's room.

He'll have to wait. As soon as he stops

worrying, he's staring again at the forecaster—

his private love firing on all pixels,

nothing falling yet,

into it with all his heart.




Charles Cantrell, a retired English professor and power lifter, has published many poems in dozens of literary magazines, from Poetry Northwest and Southern Poetry Review to The Literary Review, MARGIE and others, He has new poems in Stoneboat, and The Hurricane Review, with others forthcoming in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Paterson Literary Review, Chiron Review, The Sow's Ear Poetry Review, The South Carolina Review, and others.
Current Issue
20 Jan 2025

Strange Horizons
Surveillance technology looms large in our lives, sold to us as tools for safety, justice, and convenience. Yet the reality is far more sinister.
Vans and campers, sizeable mobile cabins and some that were barely more than tents. Each one a home, a storefront, and a statement of identity, from the colorful translucent windows and domes that harvested sunlight to the stickers and graffiti that attested to places travelled.
“Don’t ask me how, but I found out this big account on queer Threads is some kind of super Watcher.” Charlii spins her laptop around so the others can see. “They call them Keepers, and they watch the people that the state’s apparatus has tagged as terrorists. Not just the ones the FBI created. The big fish. And people like us, I guess.”
It's 9 a.m., she still hasn't eaten her portion of tofu eggs with seaweed, and Amaia wants the day to be over.
Nadjea always knew her last night in the Clave would get wild: they’re the only sector of the city where drink and drug and dance are unrestricted, and since one of the main Clavist tenets is the pursuit of corporeal joy in all its forms, they’ve more or less refined partying to an art.
surviving / while black / is our superpower / we lift broken down / cars / over our heads / and that’s just a tuesday
After a few deft movements, she tossed the cube back to James, perfectly solved. “We’re going to break into the Seattle Police Department’s database. And you’re going to help me do it.”
there are things that are toxic to a bo(d)y
By: Michelle Kulwicki
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
  In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Michelle Kulwicki's 'Bee Season' read by Emmie Christie Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.
Wednesday: Motheater by Linda H. Codega 
Friday: Revising Reality: How Sequels, Remakes, Retcons, and Rejects Explain The World by Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg 
Issue 13 Jan 2025
Issue 6 Jan 2025
By: Samantha Murray
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 23 Dec 2024
Issue 16 Dec 2024
Issue 9 Dec 2024
Issue 2 Dec 2024
By: E.M. Linden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 25 Nov 2024
Issue 18 Nov 2024
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Load More