Size / / /

Given to the frost these autumn colors

long years awaited, months to build & blaze

their gorgeous warning through a countryside

our children will not know. Eternal days

gutter like tapers toward aphelion:

time now for winter shelter, winter ways.

Given to the frost our fragile cities

bright with banners, dance, & brilliant song

offered up in sunlight. Wine flowed gladly

here amid these fountains, where a strong

northern gust whips whitecaps cold as snow

sifting through a season decades long.

Given to the frost vain thoughts of plenty:

uncounted loaves & fishes, crumbs to spare

for all who ride this rock into the exile

our fickle star requires. No mystics there

will multiply a harvest—or create

one extra drop of water, breath of air.

Given to the frost our lost & stateless,

grasshoppers of a summer fading fast

as faces in the nightmares we'll deny

next morning to each other. Past is past,

the dry leaves whisper, drifting deep across

our hatchways locked & sealed & safe at last.




Ann K. Schwader lives, writes, and volunteers at her local branch library in Westminster, CO. Her most recent poetry collection is Twisted in Dream (Hippocampus Press 2011). Her dark SF poetry collection Wild Hunt of the Stars (Sam's Dot Publishing, 2010) was a Bram Stoker Award nominee. She is a member of SFWA, HWA, and SFPA. Her LiveJournal is Yaddith Times.
Current Issue
25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
the train ascends a bridge over endless rows of houses made of beams from decommissioned factories, stripped hulls, salvaged engines—
Issue 18 Mar 2024
Strange Horizons
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: