Size / / /

I meant to write a poem for your wedding

about superfluids. About quantized groupings

whose singular momentum pushes up and over containers -

about transmission of heat, creation of vortices,

the creation of h/m proportions of vortices

where h is plank's constant -

a spun bucket that holds a dozen whirlpools.

I meant to write that you were aligned together

in the same quantum state,

and could not be contained. I meant to write

a poem of matter, of transition points -

of energy that transforms liquid to gas -

of boiling water at a steady temperature

as molecules leap into vapor.

They don't use the term latent heat anymore.

I can't use it to say you've changed states.

It was a long time building, only seeming

the same, like boiling water, as you transformed

into something that rises.




Romie Stott is the administrative editor and a poetry editor of Strange Horizons. Her poems have appeared in inkscrawl, Dreams & Nightmares, Polu Texni, On Spec, The Deadlands, and Liminality, but she is better known for her essays in The Toast and Atlas Obscura, and a microfiction project called postorbital. As a filmmaker, she has been a guest artist of the National Gallery (London), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), and the Dallas Museum of Art. You can find her fairly complete bibliography here.
Current Issue
9 Feb 2026

“I’ve never actually visited the pā before,” she said out loud. “Is this where they gather lāʻī to make the pūʻolo?” she asked. “Yes,” Benny responded, glancing to see where Nanea was pointing. “Here and in other places as well. Many of these ti have been growing for decades now.” She paused for a moment. “I think about all the work you guys do, you know, up in those offices, and I think that all of that work actually starts from right here, in the ground, all covered in the earth and the pōhaku and the ti. Most people don’t even know it, but it all starts right here.
sometime in the night, we heard rocking and knocking and rapping and tapping, a million trillion tiny feet
The triangles bred and twisted, replicating themselves.
Wednesday: Arctic Knot by Ivan Leonov 
Friday: Manga's First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 by Andrea Horbinski 
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By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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