Flying Island

O, Susanna Twelve and my breasts           begin their slow swell, moon-bright in the seventh month of my slumber. This strange sheen, as within the begonia’s waxy              heart, my neck a spreading alpenglow            when, in front of the boy from Glasgow County, Norah Clond snaps my training bra. Small discs of turquoise hang        from my ears like fingerprints, the shape pressed into my chest like Ms. Smoots taught us to find lumps    grain-thick in the paddy of some temerarious fright, that dim    scepter, womanhood . Mornings she brushes the tops                of strawberry plants with her palms to find the dark pebbles of fruit. After P.E.    girls fold their...

                                                              After the Fire Before the fire next door at Rara Avis Apartments on 417 S. Fess, the dumpster had over- flowed richly, a stinky marketplace, inviting tenants to fling overstuffed black trash bags from the windows above. The American flag serving as a shade at a glowing window bothered me some, but it became all right after the fire—flames that ravaged the second-floor corner apartments, facing away from the dumpster—blackened into eye-sockets in the skull of the building. Today, the Rara Avis dumpster has been normalized by bona fide trash: - flattened-out, stained, frozen food cartons - storm-broken tree branches - yawning styrofoam clamshell carry-out food boxes - soggy cylindrical toilet paper cores - battered, den...

Amid the Plough, Orion, Cassiopeia Sometimes we assume the stars have all the horses: plowers of want, whinniers of need. Eye-graze those silver orbs miniaturized by distance, dazzling light across the cosmos. How improbably shaped constellations are with their fiery suns, backward- revolving moons, pastures of possibility. In the Gaia wind, prance awhile, weave your spiral hair over your cave ancestors, pretend that they--Denisovans, Neanderthals-- now scattered bone relics and mud DNA, will remember, be remembered. Doris Lynch has recent work in Frogpond , Modern Haiku , Tipton Poetry Journal , and in the anthology Cowboys & Cocktails: Poetry from the True Grit Saloon.   The Indiana Arts Commission awarded her three individual artist's grants, and she has worked as a librarian and an Ivy-Tech creative writing instructor.

Light Follows Me Light follows me everywhere inside this house and outside, comes in through windows, bounces off white walls, lies down on pine floors. When I drink water I swallow light, which passes through me into water. It turns me into a shadow that lies down. It wakes me in the morning as I open my eyes to the east and feel it on my face. I open the door and step into it on a wooden balcony facing mountains that surround me and hear prayers streaming from my mouth for those I love who are my light. May I one day transform into light that shines on others from above and also within when they read my poems. Norbert Krapf , former Indiana Poet Laureate, is the author of thirteen collections, the most recent being "Indiana Hill Country Poems" from Dos Madres Press, which will also bring out "Southwest by Midwest," which includes this poem.

My Favorite Pen Pal of the Deepest Strokes                              by Distinctly Unique He stuck    his pen in   me                 deep   I bout fell over on his hard ceramic floor He left his impressionable mark  y'all  I  never felt anything like      that         before   Now     mama told me this would happen one day    Mama told me no matter what he  say    don't     get      entranced     cuz  he from a school you  could only imagine exists    And even with Mama's words swirling through my head  ...

Harbinger      by Susanna Childress The child came slick and fast and split her skin in the water where she bobbed and breathed him down, in the tub of true water, the woman saying, That’s it, That’s it . A man caught this baby’s body with his palms, held up the thing they call Son and inside her heart the boar with its tusks speared a star and nobody on this planet spoke its sorrow, its gobs of light pooling in her mouth. Susanna Childress has published two collections of poetry and is now at work on a book of creative nonfiction titled "Extremely Yours." Her work can be found or is forthcoming from The Rumpus , Fourteen Hills , Crazyhorse , Iron Horse Literary Press , Rhino , Relief, and Oakland Review . She grew up in southern Indiana.

                                                 Spring                                                          by Hiromi Yoshida Mud-speckled snow; clouded icicles glint a jagged fringe along SUV bumpers—                                  snow angels are whirred unwinged smudges on spongy ground;                                                             gutters gurgle, sputter last night’s rainwater; remnant Campbell’s Chunky Soup w...

Morning Mountain Prayer         by Norbert Krapf Morning mountain air calls me to sit outside and let it caress  my knees and calves. Just after I settle in a chair the sun rises above a small divide in the mountain and warm light slants onto this yellow paper across which the black ink of a German pen walks leaving word tracks that knew all along that in the end  near the bottom of this page they would become the thanksgiving prayer I send to the universe. Norbert Krapf , former Indiana Poet Laureate, is the author of thirteen collections, the most recent being "Indiana Hill Country Poems" from Dos Madres Press, which will also bring out "Southwest by Midwest," which includes this poem.

Too early daffodils                                                                       by Laurel Smith Dark morning, fierce wind, then stern winter gives way to a generous sun, cold air fresh, melted puddles in the fields.   It’s the same day but a changed season, a shift marked by small             green shoots next to the house: eager daffodils with no intention to temper their exuberance, to mimic our             cautious anticipation of spring. It will freeze again, maybe snow as golden blooms open—open withou...