Astrolabe

Where the light, think of it, covers everything

Materialized by James Diaz on Wednesday, June 21st 2023.

A woman and a fox stand before a palm reader store window at night with a bed of flowers at their feet, while a bird drinks from an ornamental bowl on the window sill. Atop the store window are a set of fish on a pole with a burning match at the tip, and above them are two men in a yellow lit apartment window.

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022) as well as founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their most recent work can be found in Rust + Moth, Sugar House Review, Chaotic Merge Magazine and Thrush Poetry Journal.

Other stars in the Fishtail asterism:

Sealsong in Cryosleep

Erin Calabria

Which is why you whisper the story your mother used to sing before sleep, glow-in-the-dark stars like phosphorescence across the ceiling as you half-dreamed the story about an almost forgotten ancestor, shipwrecked at sea.

Melanin No. 1

Arihant Jain

Melanin No. 1, artwork by Arihant Jain

Melanin No. 6

Arihant Jain

Melanin No. 6, artwork by Arihant Jain

A Guide to Burning Bridges

Claudia Wair

Structural design: Made of two-by-fours and broken promises, it was built on shifting ground. The burning: After staying silent for so long, you finally find your voice, and your words are enough to set the fire.

Back to the Universe