Anna Vasileva by John Sherman “We ate wallpaper glue and rancid horse meat and even scraped the spoiled milk off the bottom of the fridges in the yogurt factory…. Back then, I ate whatever I could. I even ate flowers.” Anna Vasileva, a Russian woman describing how she survived World War II, The New York Times Magazine, February 24, 2002 bringing the fragile petals to her mouth she is surprised the occasional lavenders lack the taste of their color brightly displayed against her small rough hands are scarlets perfect whites glorious pinks bursting out of the ends of their green stems that she also eats the bitterness ignored as she stifles her own I always admired flowers finding fields of them a shock ...
Flying Island is the Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, accepting submissions from Midwest residents and those with significant ties to the Midwest.