Come, walk with me, friend, out to the mailbox the way we used to walk together when I lived across the road. Older sister-friend who graduated from high school, year I was born, and who still lives there, widowed and unable to walk much of anywhere, anymore, but who can still go with me on the phone. I walk and listen while you tell me about your latest doctor's visit, and that you saw the red fox again, skimming across your backyard, and that your first husband is back in your life, a blessing who brings you groceries, and rubs your aching back. And I tell you what I see— the deer tracks cut deep in the stone-sand shoveled to patch the potholes in the gravel drive. To the south, how the brown field is combed in ridges empty of corn, and how my July hens are laying now, ...
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.