“Entropy Brooks No Countercurrent” by Aimee Ogden

Entropy brooks no countercurrent. A stern
queen, but never cruel: though
we look over our shoulders, no one turns
to salt. In her hoard, she keeps each
moment unreachable yet
preserved in its perfect
completion, a fragment of truth
engraved in the foundations
of reality.

There, long after we have
ceased to be, long after the universe
has shuttered its windows against the long
empty night, in the locked houses of our
lives, your ghost remains and my ghost
still loves yours.

Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella, “Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters” was a Nebula Award Finalist, and her third novella, “Emergent Properties,” arrived from Tor.com in July 2023. Her short fiction and poetry has previously appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Asimov’s.