Flying Island

R-E-S-P-E-C-T by Dan Carpenter Every day the probability grows stronger that someone I last met trading jumpshots and elbows on grimy blacktop or kisses on a secondhand sofa in an off-campus dump is dead now for it hasn’t been a month or a year and don’t think I can’t tell what is from what seems four decades are a boulder fallen across a mountain highway spiraling down having this time missed me but not the entire caravan it waits ahead or behind for me to drive on work around get out and climb over proceed on foot backing up being no option but there’s one other maybe you know I’ll just sit here in idle let the ’71 Beetle purr its contentment light the Marlboro I swore off in ’85 flip on the radio and play it safe not one not one beat will Aretha ever miss From Dan Carpenter: “I’m a freelance writer in many genres, born and residing in Indianapolis.I have published poems in Flying I...

Night: Sangre de Cristo Mountains by Doris Lynch Here. Now. Not above but mated to earth through journeys of clarified light. The Navajo etched crosses onto rock walls in Canyon de Chelly to mark the placement of stars. Tonight I watch one fall. It skips across Heaven’s meadows, close enough to grasp with my hand, close enough so that God’s fiery hair singes my head, my heart. Doris Lynch has recent work in Tipton Poetry Review, Frogpond, Haibun Today, and Flying Island. In 2017, she won the Genjuan International Haibun contest.

The Luminous Mysteries by Michelle Brooks For the better part of an hour, I sit in an examination room, my nose dripping onto the butcher paper, having feigned interest in the fake breast handed to me by a doctor at this urgent care. I had only hoped for a quick shot of antibiotics to make me well once more. After the door shuts, I drape my red coat over my legs, the coat I bought at a thrift store in Grosse Pointe, only a few miles from this decimated city I loved upon first sight. The doctor instructed me to practice on this model until he returned with a script. He takes my word for my condition, and grabs the breast from my hand, telling me a girl can never be too careful, and self-exams are the first line of defense. Don’t ask me how I ended up here. I’ve never been good at directions. Michelle Brooks   has published a collection of poetry,  Make Yourself Small, (Backwaters Press), and a novella, Dead Girl, Liv...

Winners of the 2017 Woman's Press Club of Indiana Prison Writing Contest First place: Down on Sand Creek by L.D. Smith Two words scrawled on a paper plate, Taped on my front door, said, "GONE FISHIN'!" I got a weekend date with Mother Nature. I can't tuen 'er down 'cause the treat's on her. Only my close friends know where I'm goin'. It's my home away from home in the palm of God's hand. I pitched my tent on a soft sandbar. Then I grabbed me a few dry leaves and twigs. I struck a kitchen match on the seat of my britches. Then I lit my kindlin' and added more wood. Night was creepin' in like a hungry coyote. As my fire burned bright on the edge of the creek, The flames were a-dancin' like a band of demons Celebratin' the capture of another lost soul. I grabbed my fishin' pole and a box of night crawlers. Then I baited my hook and I give it a sling. I reached in my coole...