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When the world burst out of an egg,
creatures came coated with yolks of myths;
like the peculiar belief of rodents
inciting them to raid homes where
their names are called. At one end of
the cosmos, the sub-moons convene
insurgency. Below, the point of
contention is in debate: movable earth
on mutable axis. The naked eye is
penumbra in cataract; rodents know
to wait the dark, death-light scamper,
ultra-violet agility, odourless tendrils.—
To rotate an empty space, one must
watch the way clouds salt over stars,
light falling like razor-shred hair,
pockets of mists in night's corneas.



Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Over three hundred of her poems appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Everything about her can be accessed on her blog, http://sheikha82.wordpress.com.
Current Issue
16 Mar 2026

The garden is the resting place of your vulnerabilities; there’s a reason you’ve left them here instead of carrying them with you. Typically you enter hardened and hurried, beelining straight for the correct plot and quickly releasing whatever is clutched in your hand without a second thought—today, an attempted weaving of leather and lace, strength and suppleness that your body cannot figure out how to wear, nor your words to narrate.
If you say there are rats, I will believe you, though I don’t hear or see them.
A ruffling of branches as they resettle for the night. We dare not ask why they are here.
Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity 
As part of a collective of African writers who have created an Afrocentric Sauútiverse of five planets, two suns and a spirit moon, a world of science and fantasy, where there is no written language, we play with technology and sound magic to scrutinise the world as we know it, and use speculative fiction as a response to our world. 
Friday: When Among Crows and To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth 
Issue 9 Mar 2026
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
Issue 23 Feb 2026
Issue 16 Feb 2026
Issue 9 Feb 2026
Issue 2 Feb 2026
By: Natasha King
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 26 Jan 2026
Issue 19 Jan 2026
Issue 12 Jan 2026
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