Size / / /

We travel forever but it's as if the car
is caught in an old forties movie:
scenery outside the windows
an obvious fabrication,
movement no more
than a sound machine hissing at us.

There is another music, though:
the baby, behind us,
among remnants of cookies she's discovered,
making sleep sounds.

When we reach Eugene,
open the car door,
fragments of the scenery fall out
from the treasure trove
she raided while we dreamed.

 

Copyright © 2002 Duane Ackerson

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Duane Ackerson lives in Salem, Oregon. He has published several collections of poetry, and his work has appeared in such places as Rolling Stone, The Christian Science Monitor, and Prairie Schooner. He has received an NEA creative writing fellowship and several Rhysling Awards from the Science Fiction Poetry Association.



Duane Ackerson's poetry has appeared in Rolling Stone, Yankee, Prairie Schooner, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Cloudbank, alba, Starline, Dreams & Nightmares, and several hundred other places. He has won two Rhysling awards and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Salem, Oregon. You can find more of his work in our archives.
Current Issue
17 Mar 2025

Strange Horizons will have three open fiction submissions throughout 2025.
In this whole ocean, not a single reply.
We are men making machines, making men.
The customer shakes me until his disc drops into the bin below. Please take your receipt, sir. He kicks me in the side and says, “Thanks for nothing, you piece of shit vending machine!”
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