Flying Island

Beginnings by Dave Malone The two grand quilting ladies leave their mark on the street— one a cigarette butt, pink with yesterday’s lips, the other a crimson handbag catching the light just so— when forty years back, she rode the Panama Limited to Chicago fresh from a divorce that never took, her elbows back on Ozark table a winter later. The smoker knows the story as much as her own— her husband a ghost running through flowerbeds she weeds out at the senior center where indoors she pokers with grace—far less lonely than any suicide king she plays. Dave Malone’s bio: “ I received my graduate degree in English from Indiana State in 1994 and later lived in the New Albany area. I no longer reside in Indiana, but I consider myself part Hoosier. My great (7th) grandmother, Mary Coughman Bridgewater, was a doctor of medicine in the early 1800s and lived at the small village of Pigeon Roost with her family. Though she lost children at the conflict ...

42  by Dave Malone What Jackie knows We hope to know. And when Preacher Steps up to bat, The man decides On home. No fear In him we know About. Such is The stuff we cast Our heroes with. In palest nights, The widow grasps The lot of sand And diamond grass. The grace of speed, The running path, The numbered runs Of Brooklyn’s best— Always fleet Of foot during Triumphant theft. Bio: Dave Malone received his graduate degree in English from Indiana State in 1994. He later lived in the New Albany area. He no longer lives in Indiana, but he considers himself part Hoosier. His great (seventh) grandmother, Mary Coughman Bridgewater, was a doctor of medicine in the early 1800s and lived at the small village of Pigeon Roost with her family. Though she lost children at the conflict there in 1812, she survived.