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On the night my father died,
My mother is caught hunting
Mosquitoes to protect our
Bodies from being stung
Like insects do to flowers.
Something visits the earth,
Forgets its beauty and casts
An alien glow over the lowering
Of my father into his grave.
I catch all the auroras before
They fall into my father’s grave
And this is the only thing whispering
Darkness into my mothers eyes.
I carry the pebbles and arrange
Them around my mother’s ache
I forget to glitter. Because I know
No other light than my mother’s.
I protect her from the world,
From the turmoil of loneliness
So when the wormhole eats
From our homes, I don’t see it
As madness since my people
Would go with my father.
The night begins to crack,
My mother’s body spreads
All the wrong ways till
All the rooms of warmth fill
With smoke.



Abdulrazaq Salihu, TPC I is a Nigerian poet and writer. He has works published and forthcoming in several notable magazines. He tweets @Arazaqsalihu.
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7 Jul 2025

i and màmá, two moons, two eclipsed suns.
Tell me, can God sing / like a katydid; cicada-bellow / for the seventeen silent years?
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland speaks with reviewers and critics Rachel Cordasco and Will McMahon about science fiction in translation.
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