Flying Island

Backseat Rider by Marjie Giffin Crammed into the backseat of my daughter’s new Toyota Rav4 with two life jackets, a sack of boxed cookies, a carton full of tri-colored tissue-wrapped gifts, my hefty purse, extra tennis shoes, and this notebook, I scribble. I contemplate my destiny: relegation to the backseat for the rest of my days. I now have senior status which, translated, means I pay for gas and hotel rooms and stops for burgers and fries, and I sit forever in the back with the baggage. I have brought too much stuff, my suitcase weighs too much, my head is in the way of my son-in-law’s rearview mirror. I need too many potty stops, my phone volume is set too loud, I forgot to bring the correct change for the trail of toll booths. My varicose veins throb due to my crumpled position, and my neck aches from bending my head out of sight. I dare not complain, or I will be stereotyped as a crabby old b...

Song of the Radio Bees by Norbert Krapf Back then when Indy was a world away to the north I was a teenager in Kentuckiana washing and waxing cars and drinking beer with chums when the engines sounded on the radio like wild bees in the woods swarming nearer and nearer as a loud hum turned deafening and they roared closer. When I first sat in the grandstand decades later as a man circling into his seventies I heard a female voice say, “Ladies and gentlemen start your engines” and those bees roared again, louder than ever before. The low-slung cars roared off, big bumps raised on my arms and legs, and my lips smacked with the taste of honey and malt as this late song brewed. Norbert Krapf, former Indiana poet laureate, has recently published his 12th poetry collection, The Return of Sunshine , about his Colombian-German-American grandson. He is completing a collection of poems for children and a prose memoir about his writ...

Hungry by Jessica Mayo-Schwab He feeds at night like a shy raccoon Waiting until the last light is out. A quiet rustling from the next room precedes a whimper. His cries creep into my dreams and draw my head out                        from the pillow nest where I hide, desperate for sleep. He waits for me in the next room, eyes wide open and smacking lips. My hungry boy. My animal baby. From Jessica Mayo-Schwab: “ I am a new mother of a hungry boy, also a wife and a social worker. I love long walks on the Monon with my guys, reading and writing.”

The Death of Mr. Peanut by Mark Williams My early memories include a sky-blue Packard cruising down Main Street past The Victory Theatre, past the gleam of drum sets and shine of black pianos behind spreading wings of glass at Harding & Miller Music. Past rows of chocolate mice at Hermann’s Candy. Today, my mother’s at the wheel. That’s me beside her, watching Main Street narrow to the river. Suddenly my mother’s pumping the brakes, leaning out the window toward a parked taxi. “ Mister! I’m going to hit you!” Mother shouts. “ Sure, lady. Go ahead,” the taxi driver says. With my mother’s arm across my chest, I learn a yellow cab will stop a sky-blue Packard. Next, I learn that Mr. Peanut, the peanut man who stands outside his shop to hand out nuts, has blue eyes inside the giant smile that cuts across his giant peanut head. “ You OK, buddy?” Mr. Peanut asks— his head too large to fit inside my window. For me, the Tooth Fairy wil...