Size / / /

Later, what she missed
was never the wings: the constant tending,
the endless preening, the heart-loss
of each and every feather-fall, but rather
the silence of the open sky,
the thunder of the raging storm,
of how sometimes on the clearest nights
she knew her wings had touched the stars.




Mari Ness is a poet, writer, and scholar of fairy tales, whose work has previously appeared in multiple zines, including here in Strange Horizons. Her poetry novella, Through Immortal Shadows Singing, is available from Papaveria Press. For more, check out her occasionally updated webpage at marikness.wordpress.com, or follow her on Twitter at mari_ness.
Current Issue
5 Oct 2026

In time, the entire shift’s 138 Express inbound transfers are processed, and I’m free to service passengers from other lines. These transfers are unremarkable. These passengers aren’t refugees.
Forgive me, someone.
Turn on the stove. See it startle.
In this episode of Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Ryan Elliot and Rosanna Pendlebury, to ask questions about literary SFF. What is it? How do we know it when we see it? And what’s it good for?
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