Size / / /

Look at those robots down there

holding their perfectly compatible partners,

analyzing their children for design flaws,

scooping fuel into cobalt-glazed bowls,

putting the day's credits on yesterday's debts

while other robots come and go,

some getting redesigned,

some getting scrapped,

their skeleton ground down and

thrown on the metallic topiary

to create sturdier blossoms

and sharper petals. And so,

rain beads on the houses and runs off again,

the heat sinks get hot and then cool again,

the old cemeteries in all their orderly profusion

grow over, forgotten and peaceful.

The robots drink their hot oil

before the quiet of night's recharging,

and in the morning wake in fresh amazement

from their randomized dreams.




Joanne Merriam is the publisher at Upper Rubber Boot Books. She is a new American living in Nashville, having immigrated from Nova Scotia. She most recently edited Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up To No Good, and her own poetry has appeared in dozens of places including Asimov's, The Fiddlehead, Grain, and previously in Strange Horizons.
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2 Mar 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Once I’ve finished writing, I will fold this letter up and tuck it into the Tristram you kindly loaned me (may it be our Galeotto … ). I’ll knock on your door, at which point I will most likely encounter a puzzled maidservant, who will ask who in the world I am, and I will explain that I am returning a book you were kind enough to bestow on me (generous creature that you are and clearly down-on-their-luck weatherworn would-be poet that I am).
the trees were softening, their bark for the hungry to scrape and scrape and spread it on whatever bread they could beg or bake
i must warn you before all else / before you poke and prod
Paul Kincaid and Dawn Macdonald join Dan Hartland to discuss style.
Friday: The Valley of the Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu 
Strange Horizons
2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity 
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By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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Strange Horizons
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