[image description: Tahlia Day’s wonderful cover art for the Strange Horizons 1 May 2017 issue; an abstract greyscale piece of rippling currents and dotted lines in beautiful swirling patterns, something like looking from above at a topographic map of a storm.]

I had a poem published in Strange Horizons recently. You can read it on their website here, in the 1 May 2017 issue. They’re a wonderful source of diverse & nuanced speculative fiction and there are some beautiful pieces published alongside mine in the same issue. I wrote CRADLE THE SEED last year, while in a dark place that I am not entirely sure I have escaped from. It’s a poem that tries to be many things at once – a plea for help, a prayer to dead gods, a premature requiem for myself, an attempt at coming to peace with my death & regaining hope for my life.

The poem is dedicated to Jess Jacobs, a professional patient advocate and health innovator. She had EDS and she died last year at the age of 29. One of her last blog posts ended with an image bearing the text ANTES DE MORIR QUIERO VIVIR, the translation of which she directed towards a colleague in a postscript. “P.S.” she said: “Before I die, I want to live.”