Size / / /

I wrought the nets that cage the finflicks of strange attractors,

incite the end of all scattered planets, fireflung into frost:

this rime that rims the outer worlds

owes all care to all my computation; the more bodies I add the better

though always it lacks neatly-nailed resolution.

The bounds to every problem last a star's lifetime.

Once in quickflicker kindness I might be inclined to exchange my eccentricity,

be governed in slow tides:

gravity's rule, stretched branch-wide, encompasses all my arguments—

No. Better, to watch all the worlds burn

sent slow into the sun:

there is such glory in every grain of darkness.




Michele Bannister has an uncommon fondness for distant worlds both small and icy. She lives in Australia, where she is working towards her doctorate in astronomy. Her poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Ideomancer, Stone Telling and other venues, in the Here, We Cross anthology (Stone Bird Press, 2012), and is forthcoming in inkscrawl and Goblin Fruit.
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3 Aug 2026

I had a daughter and then I didn’t. I woke in the cradle of midnight, shivering from a supernatural cold. I thought at first that she was crying, that she had woken me, like so many midnights before. But there was silence all around me. I sat up on one arm and peered into her crib. She was gone. In her place was wrapped a sallow, horned little boy. His eyes blinked open. I look at him. He looked at me. Changeling, I thought. Then he started to scream. “Why weren’t the windows
The deads are punctual. They arrive exactly when there is nothing left to distract us.
survival is a fungus
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Amritesh Mukherjee and Abigail Nussbaum join Dan Hartland to talk about literary awards.
Issue 27 Jul 2026
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Issue 13 Jul 2026
By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 6 Jul 2026
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Issue 22 Jun 2026
Issue 15 Jun 2026
Issue 14 Jun 2026
Issue 8 Jun 2026
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