Flying Island

Sunday Drive by Lylanne Musselman In the backseat of our ’66 green Pontiac Bonneville, my view was of the back of my parent’s heads: dad with dark wavy hair, hands on the steering wheel, his pipe smoke swirling upward and back into my space; mom with coiffed hair, in the passenger’s seat chewing her Juicy Fruit gum. I was along for the ride each Sunday going to see my grandma who lived an hour away in Kokomo. I loaded up the backseat with my favorite stuffed animals and a few books in hopes of making time cruise a bit faster. I hated leaving other beloved belongings behind, feeling guilty for all that couldn’t go. I loved listening to the radio, Fort Wayne’s strong AM station, WOWO. The Beatles, Neil Diamond, The Supremes, Tammy Wynette and George Jones were played one after the other. I could’ve done without country, but dad preferred it to my favorites. I sang along with all songs that came on, even D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Mom marveled how I knew every word, saying she wished I memor

Time Spent with My Father by Rosemary Freedman 26 bluegill were placed on my stringer and entered into the fishing contest. I was six. They snapped a Polaroid of me with that smile wide as a canoe, my small fingers holding up the line with my fish shining like silver Christmas ornaments and taped it to the bait-house wall. Now at 50 I recount that story with the joy of someone who had won a Nobel Prize—only to have it pointed out that I had cheated by scooping the fish out of water with a Styrofoam cup. The shiny tiny dinosaur-looking creatures gulping for breath like fat diabetic chain-smokers telling the last chapters of their stories. And what happened to the other children? Those line casters who patiently waited and caught nothing? Perhaps they stared at my tackle-box prize the way women stare with envy at designer purses they will never own. It was true, I was a cheater. I thought my father loved taking me with him, d

Last(ing) Memories by Christopher Stolle Today’s kids don’t know the true wonderment of basements. At my grandparents’ house, we’d put a Ping-Pong table atop the pool table. I’d grab a Red Delicious from the mini fridge, put some Roger Miller or Royal Guardsmen on the turntable (which they also won’t know), then play epic battles against my dad, who played like he was the number one ranked player in the world. And he could have been if I didn’t learn all his tricks and mistakes. About Christopher Stolle: His poetry has appeared most recently or is forthcoming in the Burningword Literary Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal , Flying Island , Branches , Indiana Voice Journal, Snapdragon, Black Elephant, The Gambler, and Sheepshead Review. He works as an acquisitions and development editor for Penguin Random House, and he lives in Richmond, Indiana.

Antelope by Keith Welch The big sign said "Missile Range--  Call this number before crossing" Bob and I were lost on miles of  pitch dark New Mexican dirt road making good time, we caught up with a  panicked antelope, leaping like a dancer in our auto-footlights the animal must have leapt the roadside fence we became its chase-car in a desert marathon both car and animal trapped in a single barb-wire path; the antelope bounding all terror and grace the car creeping along, my eye on the gas gauge  our little parade crawled for miles until the beast lunged into the barbed wire thrashing like a hooked trout broke through into the unseen landscape leaving us the empty track somewhere under the unblinking stars the antelope ran unhindered wounded but free beyond human borders Keith Welch  lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he works at the IU Herman B Wells Library. He has poems published in Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Writers Resist, Literary Orp

Gravegarden by Andrea Dunn Dig a hole, eight feet long, two and a half feet wide, six feet deep. Lower your love into the void. Cover him with a quilt of peat and moss and must. Breathe deep the loamy shroud, Beg pardon of the larvae, the tubers. Pat the dirt and clay into place with the hands that combed through his hair and grazed his cheeks. Let the silt sink beneath your fingernails. Suture the earth's new wound with marble or granite, and leave all he engraved on your heart chiseled on the rock. Water seasonally, as with the opening and closing of the sky. Warrant the sun to scorch, and permit the moon to mark time. Fertilize each moment: gaze on the before and dwell in the since. Harvest the offerings. Sacred Waters by Andrea Dunn The sound of the raindrops slowly hitting my windshield is like singular grains of uncooked rice landing in a plastic measuring cup. And now as the rain’s pace quickens,