Flying Island

Editor's note: Today is World Plastic Surgery Day why I advise against plastic surgery by Tracy Mishkin Hey, purse snatchers! I’m Princess Scarface of the Amazons. No bluff no buff no polish. Come on, muggers! I’ll bare my teeth and hiss offer you a sharp kiss. Bio: Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald's, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her second chapbook, The Night I Quit Flossing, is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Bible Study by Tracy Mishkin Genesis begins with light, ends with a coffin in Egypt. Then another coffin floats on the Nile, an ark for a tiny, wailing refugee who will build another ark, a tent of meeting in the wilderness. As an old man, he will squint at the Promised Land from an eroded mountain, his sister and brother buried somewhere behind him. No one will mention his children. If he were granted a gravestone, it would say he argued with his god. The one who sends floods that rip coffins from the earth, bobbing past this ark in which we huddle together. Bio:  Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald's, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her second chapbook, The Night I Quit Flossing, is forthcoming from Five Oaks Press. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Berry Fields Forever by Tracy Miskin Rows and rows of strawberries. The sign says U-Pick and we can eat as many as we want, bring them home and Mom will make shortcake. Our friend Ora gives us some strawberry plants and now we have a little patch next to our house. Every year they come back. At camp we sing “I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine.” And when I have my own house, I buy a flat of strawberry plants. They bear the sweet fruit every summer, and there are so many packed in the raised bed that we can gorge on them, give them away, and still they rot on the vine. My softball game is over, so I climb the mulberry tree behind the bleachers, picking and eating, stuffing them in my mouth while my brother plays baseball. Aaa batter aaa batter aaa  buzzing like cicadas below me. The mulberries stain my fingers and I track the juice into the house on my shoes. Mom wants to make pie, so we pull fruit from stems for hours, and the pie is d...

  Harmonic Convergence of the Prose Poem Indianapolis, 2018 by Tracy Mishkin   Ten thousand prose poets, fans, and groupies converge at the Crossroads of America. David Shumate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fogging the Monocle , keynotes the Convention Center. Just months since Indy hosted Super Bowl LII Below and Andrew Luck fired a frozen rope to Fleener for the win. Is the prose poem by nature a revolutionary genre? In Shumate's hands, it is liquid anarchy. We've seen poems on tractors and football helmets. The reunification of Korea via prose poem diplomacy. The Theory of Evolution declared fact by the Southern Baptist Convention. In three months, Time magazine will call 2018 "The Year of the Prose Poem." For now, we're happy with an autographed Robert Hass t-shirt and a copy of The Rooster's Wife . Bio: Tracy Mishkin is an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald...

skin artist by Tracy Mishkin for Noah your flesh my canvas      cortisone cream the dots of Seurat      no brush      my finger shades salve to skin      rough red rash      morning bathe paint      evening paint sleep      my hand my palette   Elidel      Vaseline      moving easel      no model paid to sit      still impatient impasto greasy splotches      scream resist     dismiss my art    quilt reed basket coiled pot      my son my canvas      masterpiece respite itching redness open sores Bio: Tracy Mishkin is a career immigrant. Born in academia, she taught in Georgia and published two books on African-American literature, then disappeared, resurfacing in ...

How to Steal a Piano: A Prose Poem by Thomas Alan Orr Carefully, of course.   Keep this in mind: you must not be tempted to play “Heart and Soul” or “Chopsticks” as you lower her through a window on pulleys at two in the morning.   Don’t let her bang against the side of the building on the way down lest she belly forth with fragments of Chopin or Jelly Roll Morton.   Most say the stronger man should stay above, working the ropes, but you need more muscle down below in case a wind comes up and she starts to kick and buck.   You don’t want to waste time picking up sharps and flats on the street.   Tuck her into the bed of the truck and wrap her well. Nobody likes a chilly upright or a cold baby grand.   Wool socks on the pedal lyres keep her quiet.   And don’t drop the fallboard on your fingers or else you’ll be singing.   Driving through rough streets, avoid the potholes or the whippen will come loose, composing melodies to charm a ghost. ...

A Bird of Prey Always Has the Last Word by Tracy Mishkin   for Sherry Chandler I. Letter from Hawk on Christmas Day Thank you for filling the feeder and luring the cardinal down. I was hungry, perched in a pine and waiting. Fat target. Easy prey. I suppose you sought beauty: red bird, evergreens, fresh snow. I thought only of meat.   II. Reply to Hawk   The Currier & Ives notecard was a lovely touch. I know you have to eat. Why rub it in? Today I bought every can and box on sale, all for the food bank. When the season of warmth and giving is over, donations drop. Like you, the children have to eat. They are not sentimental about their food.   III. Hawk Drops One Last Note   A donation in my honor? Precious. When I have children I cannot feed, they shrivel in the nest and I watch them die. Bio: Tracy Mishkin is a career immigrant. Born in academia, she taught in Georgia and published two books on Afric...