Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • All go somewhere by Richard Magahiz
  • In Other Months by Lora Gray
  • Eating Breakfast Pizza with an Allergy by Tony Daly
  • The Valley of Kings by Salik Shah
  • Poltergeist by Rhonda Parrish

• Full Table of Contents

---

Wyrms & Wormholes: Hopes & Dreams

Lately I’ve been lucky enough to have good news arrive, and the occasional dream come true. As is often the case the good news arrives alongside strife, hardship, and much sadness amongst many of those I care about, and those I have not yet had the pleasure to meet. Life is filled with these types of dualities, and while these juxtapositions can often feel cruel, they are also the essence of the dynamics of life. Poetry is one of those artforms that excels at expressing these dualities, and I thank all you speculative poets of the world for the opportunity to share your visions, your joys, and your pains. Personally, one can use poetry as a method of healing, but on a grander scale we are sharing stories of empathy with one another. These stories combine to form our story, on a greater cosmological scale, the ever-forming mythos of our people. Ever since the first emotion was sung, we have shared our feelings, dreams, hopes, and despairs in this way. Each and every one of your stories is relevant, important, and a piece of the history of our species. May they grow into the dreams and realities of those yet born.

And congratulations to all of this year’s Rhysling candidates! In our 45th year of the SFPA we have a record number of nominees, as well as the largest membership in our history, all of which indicates to me that speculative poetry is thriving all over the world. It’s wonderful!

It is also my pleasure to share the great news that moving forward we will be raising our rates for poetry to 4 cents a word.

—Jean-Paul L. Garnier, Star*Line Editor

---

Editor's Choice Poems

"All go somewhere" by Richard Magahiz

The time has come to speak about the next stage we reach
either by chance or by plans no one has yet made out, we only know
we all go somewhere in this material universe we know as home.

Your true mother’s face is unshaved, brooding over basaltic depths.
Your uncle clings to the lip of a rock pool alongside
twenty thousand of his kind, none of the others previously Terran.

The tall girl you knew in high school with the braid down her back
pumps ferrofluids to dizzyingly branched extremities,
though she is a young sapling, and still learning.

The old guy upstairs you haven’t seen since New Year’s day
is a polyp in a dwarf galaxy our instruments cannot make out.
Elvis is one too but they haven’t met yet.

The wife of the general vaporized by one of our drone strikes
has become fragrantly luminous, tripartite, free from pain.
Her husband clings to life and cannot say the same.

We’re not allowed to know where any of
the right whales and orangutans have gone off to,
and you shouldn’t ask about the springer spaniels.

It’s been a long time since any humans have turned up
in this patch of space again and by now
all of the ones who have are far away now.

When they tell you that you can’t take it with you,
they don’t mention the scent of hexapods roasted by flare star light,
or the ingenious scuttling sedans which eat gravity.

And while there is eternal punishment somewhere,
one does not really need to fear unquenchable fire.
There are other colorful ways to balance the books.

I tell you this not so you should go spread the word,
which wouldn’t make one bit of difference to a single soul,
but just hope to encourage quiet reflection.

Those of us who know a thing or ten thousand,
who also lie in the dark thinking of trillions of stars,
really prefer an indefensible black silence.

---

"In Other Months," by Lora Gray

In other months, I’d watch for transports
on the launch pad beyond the ridge
and I’d imagine a bloom of silver ships,
innumerable as wildflowers,
spiked skyward and preparing to launch.
I’d brave air raid sirens to look for them,
certain their appearance,
just beyond our once-secure camp,
with its families and interplanetary refugees
huddled in tents and flimsy ‘temporary’ huts,
would mean an off-world ticket
and safety.

In other months, I’d believe
the magistrates
when they say, “Wait.
Be patient.
Your turn is coming soon.”

In other months, I’d close my eyes
and that flash would be a camera, a passport photo,
not a bomb,
that burning smell would be rocket fuel,
not human hair,
that roar would be a shuttle,
not the neighbor’s baby,
radiation-sick and wailing,
her flesh pulling away
as if it, too, wants to escape
but doesn’t
quite
have the money
or means
for a legal departure.

---

"Eating Breakfast Pizza with an Allergy," by Tony Daly

Battle started before hanger doors closed,
a full-scale, planet-wide invasion
of the sinus cavity: walls inflamed,
irritated, deployed defenses
of mucus shielding,

sent alarms via
integrated communication system
of neural interface web:
visual receptors watered and reddened,
pain throbbed at central dispatch,
was audibly identifiable.

Foreign debris subsequently ejected
from hanger, but too late,
damage was done
to entire planetary infrastructure.

For several lunar cycles,
tremors were felt,
causing floods and gas line leaks,
transport of consumer products restricted,
more strict regulations
on cargo inspection implemented,
transportation routes disrupted,
societal interactions altered indefinitely.

---

"The Valley of Kings," by Salik Shah

Our wars—
the young prince thought
and envied the long-dead
ancestor no longer.

He wanted neither the delicious
privilege of creation
—the architect’s responsibilities
and burdens—
nor the sulfurous breath of death,
sometimes a face,
sometimes an entire nation
to focus their hatred upon.

“Among every intelligent being,
there are seeds of destruction,
a handful of tyrants in every spry
corners of the universe,”
the apparition said.
“We forgive your ignorance.”

“Our wars—”
the young prince started.

“Give us your hatred; give us your despair,”
the apparition was now saying.
“We shall take them and only then,
you can get rid of our heirloom.”

“Our wars destroyed us!”
the young prince now
bellowed and howled,
shattering the bloodsword,
its deafening rumble echoed
through the valley of kings,
where the records of their
violent age were etched
in ruins of stones
and precious metals.

As the young prince walked away
from the treasures of the fallen
through the Gate of Oblivion,
the apparition gathered
the shards of their once-
great investment,
and closed their eyes
to resume their sleep,
but they found
they couldn’t.

The prince’s words troubled
the tomb’s forgotten resident,
reawakening long-buried
memories of a time past,
a loss beyond words:
Our wars destroyed us.

---

"Poltergeist," by Rhonda Parrish

at her graveside service we huddled
around a hole which seemed far
far too small for her
too small to contain her contagious laugh
her giant spirit of generosity
or her tornado of a temper

the grass, dead and brown crinkled
beneath my feet as I shifted one to the other
over and over
while the silence spread on and on
after the preacher asked if anyone wanted
to speak

but I knew—my whole family
staring down at our hands, at the ground knew—
we’d speak to her tonight
as we had every night since she’d passed
trying to coax her to the light or
at the very least
get her to stop breaking the dishes
as she raged against the unfairness of it all.

---

Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * Jean-Paul Garnier
• SFPA Announcements
• President’s Message * Bryan Thao Worra
• From the Small Press * Herb Kauderer, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, John Reinhart, Lisa Timpf
• Stealth SF * “This Is Not the End of the World” * Denise Dumars
• Xenopoetry * ¡Muerta! (Dead!) * Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta, translated by Brittany Hause

Art

• Rabbits Watching the Fire Rise * R. Mac Jones
• prescience * Blaize Kelly Strothers

Poetry

• All go somewhere * Richard Magahiz
• Natural Selection * Andy Dibble
• Celestial Life * Jamal Hodge
• If Only * Ian Willey
• Frost Flowers * Meg Smith
• Hibertransformation * John Reinhart
• Vintage Science Fiction * Mary Soon Lee
• Abaddon * Robert L. Jones III
• Thermoplastic * Colleen Anderson
• [wormhole gloves] * Stephen C. Curro
• [science fiction blues] * Gabriel Smithwilson
• a world runs over * Brian Hugenbruch
• The Orpheus Channel * Amelia Gorman
• {FileName:3P4_P61_Terminal} * Nicole Bloomfield
• [a portrait of the] * ayaz daryl nielsen
• The Hanged Man Makes Bread * Sandra Lindow
• Sweet William * Vanessa Jae
• Keeping the Traditions * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• golem * Marisca Pichette
• Harvesting the Future * Pedro Iniguez
• Pittsburg Temporal Transfer Station * Alan Ira Gordon
• [asking the 8 ball] * dl mattila
• [come anytime] * LeRoy Gorman
• Three Modern Roses * Lorraine Schein
• Earthlings Among Us * Michael McCormick
• [breaking news] * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
• [we don’t celebrate] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• In Other Months * Lora Gray
• [cries of disbelief ] * Stephen C. Curro
• Ode to V’ger * Francene Kaplan
• Forget That * Beth Cato
• Caught You * Gerri Leen
• Launchpad * Benjamin Whitney Norris
• A Conspiracy of Smiles * Josh Pearce
• If I Were Human * Marie Vibbert
• [sting] * Karl Lykken
• Sensitivity to Light * Gerri Leen
• [the universe] * Greer Woodward
• Bright and Breezy * Harris Coverley
• Starbeing * Caroline Reddy
• The Light Mine * F. J. Bergmann
• Illumination * PS Cottier
• You, Too, Can Read Minds * Lauren McBride
• Speculations * Anna Cates
• The First 100 Days * John Reinhart
• [remembering] * Joshua St. Claire
• Fretful Satellite * Gerri Leen
• Thanks for Nothing * Randall Andrews
• First rule of space travel * Eva Papasoulioti
• [wishing] * Barun Saha
• Killer Kudzu * DJ Tyrer
• Seeing-holes * Marisca Pichette
• Godzilla vs. the Crushing Weight of Free Will * Henry Kneiszel
• Eating Breakfast Pizza with an Allergy * Tony Daly
• [underwater vocalists] * T. R. Jones
• Ice Queen’s Germination * Christine Butterworth-McDermot
• [parallel world woe] * LeRoy Gorman
• The Valley of Kings * Salik Shah
• Microcosms * Deborah L. Davitt
• Slue-Foot Sue Sets the Record Straight * Brittany Hause
• Mainship—Be Advised * Lauren McBride
• Kindly Stopped for Me * Avra Margariti
• [star freighter] * D.A. Xiaolin Spires
• Giving In * Debby Feo
• Tough Love * Herb Kauderer
• The Arrogance * Debby Fe
• Poltergeist * Rhonda Parrish
• [libs love zombies] * Gary W. Davis
• Six-Strand Challah * Mariel Herbert
• The Ghost Festival * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
• Petrified * Jason P. Burnham
• [silently it came] * Lucien Reinhart