Flying Island

A trilogy by Kate Duffy Sim Tiger and Monkey in Love We loved before time, danced in the crystalline black Of limitless space, Shot upward in arcs, twined in a happy helix, Merged, melted, and fell. I broke away, spread into a web of pink pearls, Caught you as you dropped. You shattered my strand, pearls plummeting toward the void. You caught them, caught me, Tossed me toward the Light. I scattered among the stars. you visited each, And we danced and laughed, star to star, pearl by pearl, Until it was time And we were called down to this lonely blue opal, This lonely planet, Forgot who we were as we donned our cloaks of clay And went separate ways. But time after time I knew I was missing you. Somehow I just knew. You must have known too when we collided that day In our cloaks of clay. You asked me to dance. You reached out, your cloak fell back, And your light shone through. I knew it was you, and you knew it was me, too. And we danced and lau...

Turtle Death by Hannah Essink A lie would paint that I want it not Sometimes a fabricated portrait is better Than dropping down the mask to see The beautifully hideous truth of turtle death Society conditioned me for failure Grown-ups then before I came to that time All told me the same, encouraged the day dreaming Of my turn someday - they did not talk about turtle death Someday is turning to no day so slowly But the dream is not a complete lie Which makes it all the worse – true for some But may very well never be for me thanks to turtle death My dream is breaking – why is this so? Is it a tasteless joke shoved down my throat? But no indeed, there is a cloud of blindness on the world today Times have changed and people with it – turtle death What is this hope in my soul that keeps rising? I do not heed the declarations of society as it creeps closer I see it and sometimes despair, but ever I strive for hope I wish to rise above it all and defeat this turtle ...

Old Scars and Parasites by George Kalamaras Let me return to the arctic fox. The walruses off the coast of East Greenland molt their skin each August to rid themselves      of old scars and parasites. I wish it were as easy to begin each day. I wish I could leave the imprint in the bed, not keep recalling depth by sleep.    The walruses can descend up to sixty feet to feed but, after five minutes, return to  the     surface for air. I consider how the forest rishis mastered the breath and what else they must have learned      from the sad hair of trees. The roadside shadow billows with woodstove smoke. It has been a long spring, summer, and fall, fearing—as we have—the cold. Let me discern the arctic fox surviving on the spoils of bears. You can hear their whimpering a long way off, as if from the blood-stained snout of a     trapped fifth season. Bio: George Ka...

Creative Nonfiction by Barbara Davis I stepped into a long, low building at the Nazi death camp, Majdanek. Near the door a weathered wooden sign said, “Bad und Desinfektion.”At the other end of the building was a chimney.  A few steps inside the gas chamber was a cement swimming pool for children to play in while the adults got undressed for their showers. The shower heads were still in place. At the very last moment, the children were gathered up and thrown like footballs over the heads of their parents and the door slammed shut. There was a gas-proof peephole on the door where SS men stood and watched for the 18 or so minutes it took everyone to die. The glass on the peephole had been smashed.   After the killing, forced laborers began the task of separating the bodies, putting them on carts, and sending them to the dissection room to be searched for gold teeth and jewelry. The walls and ceiling of the huge room bore sea-blue stains from the Zyklon B gas. Two ca...