Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 8.25 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by Martha Christina , Elaine Fowler Palencia , Chris Dean . Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers

Ornamental When the young sharp shinned hawk lands on the feeder,  the small song birds have already fled. It settles on the top,  immobile, almost  ornamental. Those who know  more than I about  hawks assure me  disappointment is a human emotion, not something a hawk feels, left alone with only sunflower seeds. Martha Christina was born and raised in Indiana, earned a BA in Spanish from IU Bloomington, and married in Beck Chapel there. She now lives in Bristol, RI, but considers herself a Hoosier-at-heart. She has published two full-length collections, Staying Found (Fleur de lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press), both of which contain poems set in Indiana. Individual poems appear recently in Crab Orchard Review , Star 82 Review, and Tiny Seed Journal . Image: Cyanotype of British Algae by Anna Atkins (1843)

Twilight Lexus “The last car I will ever buy,” you said, and we laughed at this flimsy excuse to spend on luxury, for once in our lives, and drove ninety miles past winter-parched fields to Peoria to be schooled in the new vehicle’s bells and whistles pat the old car goodbye and be handed key fobs we didn’t understand. My father used to say such things— the last suit I will ever buy,  the last big trip we will take, my last lawnmower. He had a PhD in lugubriousness. On the way home, the winter sun sinking, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel  and observed how much of the wall “art”-- boxy cardboard letter files, stoneware jugs, stern ancestors discomfited in oval frames, augers, potato mashers, rusty hand saws,  cast iron cookware, mantel clocks— are still part of our daily lives, and we noted the main demographic:  women in late middle age  eating with an aged parent  who was taking most of the meal home for later and whose liver spots matched ours, and I thought, maybe you were right abou

afternoon gardening I arch my feet, working tendons, bones and joints that seem to be slowly reshaping themselves into gnarled roots. My hands twist and curl more daily; stiff, bulbous knuckles no longer so much fleshy fingers as knotty branches. I pause to stretch, toes dug into earth and arms open to the sky. In the warmth of the sun, I feel the continuity of my Mothers flow through me like sweet sap. As I joyfully sway in the wind, I smile at the thought my body isn't really aging, I'm simply becoming the Family Tree.  Chris Dean , a writer from Indiana, began writing poetry in 2018. They were the featured artist for May at the Columbus Area Arts Council Monthly Open Mic Night. Their work was published in The Whiskey Mule Diner Anthology . Image: Plant forms, an Impression Figure by Margaret Watts Hughes, pigment on glass, date unknown. Courtesy of Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery.