Online Issue Contents

• Wyrms & Wormholes

• Editor's Choice Poems
  • Rocket Women by Kayla Reifel
  • Raised by Mushrooms by Mary Soon Lee
  • Travelogue by Jean-Marie Romana
  • Antares by D. M. Crawford
  • In hope of sharing by Brian Hugenbruch

• Full Table of Contents

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Wyrms & Wormholes: Change is the Only Constant

Please join me in welcoming new SFPA President Colleen Anderson, and interim VP Christina Sng. And in a gracious farewell to our outgoing President Bryan Thao Worra. Colleen’s organizational skills and vision are sure to steer us in positive directions for the future of the SFPA. A big thank you for all of Bryan’s dedication and service to our association. I am always impressed by the stalwart nature of our board members and volunteers: even though much of the work takes place behind the scenes, they are integral to the smooth running of the many SFPA endeavors. Change is the only constant in the cosmos, and we welcome change. New voices and ideas are always a positive, and I couldn’t be more pleased that our organization is growing rapidly with new voices from all over the planet.

On another note, I recently attended LosCon 48, and had the pleasure of meeting fellow SFPA members, as well as reading and paneling about the wonderful worlds of specpo. It was a great experience and I hope that I will have the opportunity to meet you all in meatspace at some point. I am regularly blown away by the talent and variety of themes that our membership employs. Keep bringing poetry into the world, my friends!

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

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Editor's Choice Poems

"Rocket Women" by Kayla Reifel

they rode in with the men at dawn,
straddling the landing gears.
they kissed good luck charms onto hammers
and stroked their rocket boys’ hair.

off ran the rocket men
to purge the dust planet of strange.
thighs pressed together,
the women grinned behind the rocket windows,
and gave birth to a world of their own.

lush green &
marked by purple rivers &
utopian towers—
the city bustles in peace.

free of their taxi drivers,
the rocket women lived forever.

lifetimes later,
on the other side of the planet,
people whisper rumors
of the last city of the martians

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"Raised by Mushrooms," by Mary Soon Lee

Quieter and subtler their doctrines
than those of wolf or bear or eagle.

Theirs the slow speechless semiotics
of spores and spreading filaments.

Theirs the thrift of those who harvest
death, subsisting on decomposition.

I took their gifts for granted:
the thousand truffled feasts,

the pharmacopoeia to shift my mood,
the green light they shed by night.

For years, they understood me better
than I understood my own slight self.

They taught me caution, a fear of men,
the art of being underestimated,

taught me, too, their fatal tools,
pale poisons swift to smite a foe.

And when, at length, I took revenge
on the prince who’d cast me out,

then, only then, I knew myself
a weapon they’d raised for war.

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"Travelogue," by Jean-Marie Romana

Eleven centuries on the gray bus—
still wondering
when we’ll reach Purgatory.

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"Antares," by D. M. Crawford

In our voyages
We found Antares,
A planet whose civilization
chose death.
Among the Karathi cities,
colonizers from a nearby star,
stood a monument, black
Holding up the sky.
Inscribed, (they left pictograms
to aid translation of their
language), it read:

“We, of Antares,
having evolved beyond
the evolutionary thrust
for survival, will make
No more great efforts
to persist. We’ll not
destroy another ecosystem
      to support our ravenous hunger,
massacre another of our factions
      to allay our fears,
oppress another underclass
      to maintain order,
nor break another generation of youth
      to preserve our traditions.
We are the only
beneficiaries of
our existence and
we will not accept
a redundant survival
at cost to
the universe.
If we live, if we die,
so be it.

So ends Antares.”

As our ship took flight
to leave that world,
I looked down and
wondered:

On how many planets
did such monuments
rise among the quiet
forests?

On how many empty worlds
had people resisted the
temptation to
construct such
memorials?

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"In hope of sharing," by Brian Hugenbruch

A robot stands along the road for days,
a sandwich waiting in its rusty metal claw
for any friend who’d dare to claim it.

The child happens down the path
and stops, confused. She reaches out
at first, but then she pulls her hand away.
“My mother says to never trust a bot,”
she says. “Are you my friend?”

The robot swivels its head to look her in the eye,
its blocky body groaning as it moves.
“I am your friend,” it says, “I think.
I want to be, at least.”

“But you can prove it, right?”
Brown eyes gone wide and hopeful.
“’cos I want to show you my tree fort,
but can’t do that if you’re my enemy.”

The robot turns this over in its
data buffer. “I have no way to prove
a negative,” it says. “But I have
a sandwich I can share. Is that okay?”

“What kind?”

“It’s peanut butter.”

“Chunky?”

“Smooth,” it says. “The nuts would cause me harm.”

The girl’s hand falls to her side.
“Then you may not be my enemy,” she says,
“but we cannot be friends.” And she turns away
and disappears into the waiting wilderness.

The robot stands along the road for days,
a sandwich rotting in its rusty metal claw
for any friend who’d dare to claim it.

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Full Table of Contents

Departments

• Wyrms & Wormholes * Jean-Paul Garnier
• SFPA Announcements
• President’s Message * Colleen Anderson
• From the Small Press * Robin Rose Graves, John Reinhart, Lisa Timpf
• Stealth SF * The Gate and the Key * Denise Dumars
• SpecPo Publishing * Interview with Holly Lyn Walrath * Jean-Paul Garnier
• Xenopoetry * Oración para los antiguos viajeros de la Tierra
  (Prayer for the Old Voyagers of Earth) * Angela Acosta

Poetry

• two glottal stops * D. A. Xiaolin Spires
• The Beforelife * Matthew Richards
• A Linguist’s Lament * Lauren McBride
• Moral Imaging * R. A. Allen
• Vortices of Trauma Eating A Cyborg out of Io * Olumide Manuel
• [Gondoliers strum strings] * Akua Lezli Hope
• A Hippocratic Vision * Ed Ahern
• [clouds of Venus] * Lauren McBride
• [Project Primate Uplift] * Richard Magahiz
• Cryogenic Heads * Benjamin Whitney Norris
• The World, Which Once … * Kendall Evans
• Seven Years Post-Op * Avra Margariti
• Rocket Women * Kayla Reifel
• [polls close] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [They grow up so fast,] * Sarah Cannavo
• The Enigma * Anna Cates
• Surface vision * Miguel O. Mitchell
• Raised by Mushrooms * Mary Soon Lee
• No Common Language Leaves Gestures * Lauren McBride
• Earth’s Reclamation/Next Up * Jay Sturner
• Change to Come * Jason P. Burnham
• Never An Oasis * Brian Hugenbruch
• /// * Marisca Pichette
• [cloud-watching on Mars] * Lauren McBride
• Sculpting Stars * Deborah L. Davitt
• [tidal lock] * Stephen C. Curro
• Asteroid Dump * James Arthur Anderson
• [sentient now] * LeRoy Gorman
• The Blood of Life * Deborah L. Davitt
• Learning To Swim * Gabriel Smithwilson
• Andromeda * Benjamin Whitney Norris
• Goodbyes * Kim Whysall-Hammond
• ’90s kids * Lynne Sargent
• [table dancing] * David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• [synthetic] * Roger Dutcher
• Even the Most Advanced Technology * F. J. Bergmann
• We Both Loved You * Lauren McBride
• Edge Off * A. E. Chandler
• Proxima Set-Up Crew Opts to Stay * Lisa Timpf
• Self-Inflicted * Denny E. Marshall
• [the womb] * Tyler McIntosh
• When They Found Out About Us * Angela Acosta
• A Place Among Skies * Juan M. Perez
• No One Will Remember * Anna Cates
• Travelogue * Jean-Marie Romana
• [star jasmine] * Joshua St. Claire
• Drunken Giant * Kim Whysall-Hammond
• Messages in a Klein Bottle * F. J. Bergmann
• Memory of Asteroids Near JPL * Howard V. Hendrix
• Blocked Call * Alan Ira Gordon
• Dante’s Europa * Robert L. Jones III
• A Thought Experiment * Benjamin Whitney Norris
• Holograms from Beyond * Pedro Iniguez
• Hunky Dory * Ian Willey
• Suspended Subject Matter * Sultana Raza
• To the Happy Couple … * Gerri Leen
• Embrace * Dawn Vogel
• The Witch’s Daughter * Matthew Wilson
• Saplings * Debby Feo
• Hear the Call of the Epicyon * Avra Margariti
• multiverse * K. V. K. Kvas
• [we’re ground beneath the wheel] * Robin Wyatt Dunn
• On the Up and Up * Jason P. Burnham
• [whirling round Earth] * Gary W. Davis
• Those before times * Richard Magahiz
• Pure Science * Ken Poyner
• [coalmine canaries] * Howard V. Hendrix
• Obliterating Singular Errors * Sultana Raza
• Asleep on the Fairy Mound * Meg Smith
• Touchstone * Benjamin Whitney Norris
• Down or Up * Mahaila Smith
• An Encounter * Garrett Carroll
• [hangover from hell] * Randall Andrews
• Nature for Sale * Roger Dutcher
• the jettisoned * Juan M. Perez
• Hot Pot * Ngo Binh Anh Khoa
• Antares * D. M. Crawford
• [taking flight] * Christina Sng
• In hope of sharing * Brian Hugenbruch
• Wait, Hope * Joseph Halden & Rhonda Parrish
• Masters of the Future * Bruce Boston
• Annual Report * Michael H. Payne
• a record of last letters * Eva Papasoulioti
• Soporific * Yuliia Vereta
• [rosy eye implants] * Valentina Ranaldi-Adams