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.
Current Issue
11 May 2026

If only Serthe'P had been able to fit in, maybe she could have protected —. No. This thought was dangerous. Mnth’R had helped her understand that their isolation had more to do with the Raja’s exploitation of their cast’s fears than any shortcomings of theirs, his Manifest Sight propaganda curdling climate anxieties into prejudice against community members. Serthe’P needed to remember that their lives mattered too much to be reduced by a tyrant’s ideology. Separated from the cast, they were still finding ways to take care of each other.
Siberia our first home / wild and remote–safe / but Alexei wanted more / theatre–dances–rich men
Change requires examination of the initial errors
Wednesday: The Apple and the Pearl by Rym Kechacha 
Friday: Zoi by Jane Mondrup 
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By: Athar Fikry
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
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By: Lio Abendan
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Strange Horizons
2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Issue 2 Mar 2026
Strange Horizons
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