Flying Island

The Dumb Luck of the World  Yet I’d like to think of both these new, down-feathered  ducks—who float as if wordless worlds found here on this close pond surface,  which starts at a thawed center,  but ripples out toward frozen edges—as kin to the flock who stayed here year ‘round until one day leaving. Words always sound better in thought keeping there.   And a world of words does not englobe this source of circles within melting circles, yet I’d like to think of the two mallards as one of those faint, earthly mysteries of home forgotten, then found, as if I were recalling now the happy, dumb  luck of overwhelming life  after moving past the pond. —Alex Missall   Alex Missall studied creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. His work has appeared in Superpresent , and Hole in the head review , as well as other publications. His poetry collections, A Harvest of Days , and Morning Grift , are forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (2026)...

In the Break Room at the Medical Billing Office  Justine hems pants  on her coffee break and won’t finish a seam on an odd-number and has to start over if the sewing lottery  spits out an uneven count. When I ask her about  the child’s pants she sews, she tells me, grandparenting is the only thing.  I think she believes it right then as she weaves the stars with her tiny needle, lost there like God.  - Dave Malone Dave Malone is a poet and screenwriter from the Missouri Ozarks. He holds degrees from Ottawa University and Indiana State University. A three-time Pushcart nominee, he is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Bypass (Aldrich Press, 2023). His work has been featured on NPR and appeared in Midwest Review , Fourteen Hills , and Red Rock Review . He can be found online at davemalone.net and on TikTok @poetmalone.

Puerto Jiménez This is where we came to rest on our way to paradise, prop plane idling, laden with our duffle bags and dreams of life away from howler monkeys braying in our ears back home, seeking peace amidst the wild Costa Rican forest flora— outré birds and ocelots, two-toed sloths and coatimundi, water-walking Jesus lizards— only to encounter death: a tiny cemetery by our lonesome landing strip, cockeyed crosses, black mold staining jagged rows of concrete crypts above the ground like buttress roots tangled in the humid forest, clinging lightly to the clay, breathing in the cloudy air. And I wondered as we taxied if the dead preceded us, soaring off above the ocean like a pouch of pelicans or they waited by the runway lying in their sunlit bardo, more like the resplendent quetzals perched in avocado trees, heedless of the needful travelers touching down and taking off into the sky, as if this land were paradise enough. - Ken Honeywell Ken Honeywell is a reader, writer, Butler Univ...

On the Cusp of Tomorrow New Orleans We lie in bed snug as milkweed pods in our soft cocoon. Sweet olive scent  pours through the windows. Outside,  firecrackers whistle and bang. Inside,  the full moon pours ivory light over  our century-old floorboards, and though  we can’t hear them, the cockroaches have begun their nightly strut cruising  the countertops in search of crumbs. We should be in the Quarter dancing with the volleyball gang, singing off-key, keeping an eye out for Sean O’Shaughnessy  who usually veers into the jasmine shrubs  by this hour to sleep off too many ouzos  from the Greek Decatur Street bar. Instead,  we lie whispering to each other like children  sent to bed for a prank. As the tugboat’s  eye illuminates our room, the clock’s hands  move closer. At a minute to twelve,  the deaf couple next door flicks their yellow  porch lights on and off, on and off, a silent celebration of our...

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 4.25 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by M.J. Arcangelini, Rebecca Mueller , Natalie Solmer , Antonia Matthew , and Sarah Seybold . 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

Across St. Martin Bay M. J. Arcangelini The two tall towers of the Mackinac Bridge stand fuzzy, but visible, on the horizon line. This first frosty morning of the season the water appears still as a freeze frame, but that will come later, with the snow, for now the  motion across the surface of St. Martin Bay  remains observable, a liquid shiver, anticipating the cold which will soon convert it all to ice, solid open space for snowmobiles and hockey teams, where coyotes may consume their kills in peace. In this shrinking meantime, on this calm morning the water is a simple zen mantra muttering itself to the gentle breeze, offering peace to even the most troubled of souls, if they will have it. M. J. (Michael Joseph) Arcangelini’s work has been published in many magazines, online journals, and anthologies, the most recent of which is “Pawning My Sins” (Luchador Press, 2022) and “Fierce Kisses” (Squares & Rebels Press, 2024).

Which reminds me Rebecca Mueller I carry a spoon in my purse to eat yogurt on the way to yoga. It reminds me of the silverware in my mother’s kitchen drawer, which, with chewed-up edges, reminds me of my mother’s kitchen sink, which reminds me of her garbage disposal which ate not only the food scraps but the silverware that made raucous sounds when a piece rattled around in it until she was able to reach the switch which was under the sink which reminds me of my father who built the house and, strangely, put the switch  under the sink, not on the wall next to the sink, which reminds me of my father in his years of dementia who dismantled one of the toilets in the house and laid the pieces of pipes with u-turns, the screws and nuts and bolts out on the floor  and forgot about them, until he noticed them again and, having forgotten how to put them back together again using all the pieces, instead joined the u-pipes with rubber bands, leaving the nuts and bolts on the floor, whi...

Florist’s Dream: The Flood Natalie Solmer filling the cold buckets I’m inside the cooler everywhere is the cooler cutting red roses in the black-walled cooler it’s all chiaroscuro in a big grocery store I’m trying to keep up there’s a flood suddenly in the store my lover’s family: his mother, sister visiting from Jamaica, we’re swimming through the flood I’m carrying the babies they brought I lose one like a bouquet of roses floating away I wake in my own mother’s home I’m away from my lover in real life the great flood still killing down in the mountains where I learned life in a floral shop, my youth wiped out in Asheville streets the mountains of my old love 4:30am, I slip back down back into sleep Natalie Solmer was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, a granddaughter of Polish and German immigrants. She worked for many years as a horticulturalist and florist and is now an Associate Professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College. She also founded and edits The Indianapolis R...