Flying Island

The Ceremony Remains (For Erna Rosenfeld) by Hiromi Yoshida Bike-rush down the wrong South Adams Street dead- end to dead-end—grey October air heavy with mourning and rainstorm threat. “Is it rude to appear late for an occasion such as this?” I wondered as though each moment (I was not there) were yet another blow striking one final nail into her casket. Urgency and denial coexisted so impossibly—propelling me in all the wrong directions as though my heart were a broken compass unable to gauge the simplest way to the site of serene abjection (i.e. the Beth Shalom Gardens). Discarded funeral program pamphlets folded slightly askew with the damp of sad fingers; water for ritual handwash running sparkles; bowl of unknown Jewish ceremony implements folded carefully in dark blue linen; and the colossal casket in the designated oblong hallowed groundspace--clods of soil ritualistically scattered across its hidden surface, ...

Poisoned Soil by Joseph S. Pete In a black-and-white picture, Shadow-effect letters pop off the pristine fence line, Proudly declaring the plant “The Home of Anaconda White Lead” As though lead were as wholesome as oatmeal, As All-American as dogs and suds at a vintage drive-in. For decades, the factory smelted lead, Corroding lead, antimonial lead, Lead for paint, insecticides, who knows what else. Bug-killing chemicals seeped into that patch of soil in East Chicago, City of heavy industry and hopeful immigrants, Lakefront city of coiled steel and ship canals. After the factory inevitably shuttered, Having run its course, Someone somewhere at some point Decided to plop public housing on that salted swath of lead and arsenic. Somebody decided it was okay For kids to play in neurotoxin-ridden dirt. Then one day, Officials in button-down shirts and soft leather shoes Called a public meeting In a school auditorium where a few ...

Singular Plurality by Dan Carpenter When one learns one interests no one not even one’s loved ones one feels at once wonderment at having won at one for once with oneself About Dan Carpenter: “ I'm a freelance writer in Indianapolis who's published poems in Flying Island, Poetry East, Illuminations, Pearl, Xavier Review, Southern Indiana Review, Tipton Poetry Journal and other journals.” 

February Ice Storm by Doris Lynch        Eighty-four years ago, your first-- another century, another world. Horsecarts clattered over cobblestones, fruit & vegetable men yodeled to housewives, urging them to buy winter carrots and cabbages. On Allegheny Avenue flappers wove, their hair newly cropped, sequened dresses shining with sun. Scarfs, capped with fox faces, draped ivory necks. Another February--your birthday-- you lie cocooned in a hospital bed in Crystal River’s Emergency Room across from the twin-headed nuclear plant that buttresses the Gulf of Mexico while a phone call away, Indiana hail hisses and trucks disgorge salt onto Highway 45. There is no safety for any of us: not drivers skidding from tiger-stripe to bike lane, not doctors carefully scanning your MRI, not black lab sprawled, legs akimbo on glazed lawn beneath the lone cardinal seeking shelter in crystalline hedgerow. ...