Flying Island

The Blowing Prophecy by Michael E. Strosahl Already the winds have chilled, already the leaves that waved through summer have dried and come loose. have been carried away to the fields edge to cackle with those who fell before, to crackle stories with the chaff of corn stalks who warn of the coming harvest that is sure to claim us all. The fragile bones of unshielded bean pods rattle as they shiver in the cool of a breeze, quaking with the rumble of the trucks and combines that will soon thresh out the gold grown from soil and sun and cast off the dust of shells and stems to be blown across cleared land as the blackbirds descend to look for the forgotten— those lost souls of autumn— before they too are chased, to flap away on the zephyrs of November. Michael E. Strosahl is originally from Moline, Illinois. After moving to Indiana, he joined several poetry groups and traveled the state meeting many members of ...

My Sister’s Clothes by Nancy Pulley Mementos wait in the family home for me to muster up some kind of ancestral tough love-- throw away the past. How many keepsakes do I need to sift through to find a solid lump of grief? How many tchotchkes will fit in an already crowded shadowbox? I’m trying to find comfort in postcards sent to my grandmother, Mom’s handmade doilies, in the metal closet where my sister’s clothes hang empty waiting to be placed in that old wooden storage trunk of my heart. Nancy Pulley 's poems have appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, the Indiannual, Flying Island, Arts Indiana Literary Supplement, Passages North, Plainsong, the Sycamore Review, and the Humpback Barn Festival collection. In 1992, she won the Indiana Writers Center poetry chapbook contest, resulting in the publication of a chapbook, Tremolo of Light.

Meatless Fridays were meant to be a sacrifice. Frozen fish sticks or tuna salad on toast with vegetable soup filled our bellies most weeks. But sometimes, unpredictably, Dad would bring home carryout cheese pizzas and a six-pack of Pepsi Cola in glass bottles. Entering the front door, he bore the scent of melted mozzarella and crisp baked dough in twin cardboard boxes. Each of us snagged a slice and giggled when the stringy cheese stretched from box to plate. Six of us kids eyed shrinking pizzas across a long, scarred table, as grease and tomato sauce dripped on chins, and fizz from half a soda filled our noses. Nights like that, Dad was a hero, and our myopic eyes failed to see the fraying cuffs of his pressed white shirt, shiny elbows of his suit, thinning hair, weary gaze, or the hollow set of his dark eyes.                                     ...

Musing Half Asleep by Roger Pfingston Pleasantly redundant, birds chip away November darkness, though some, like the crow, are more industrial. Imagine sitting down at a table of crows, half a dozen blabbing non-stop like one of those talk shows, no commercials unless you count another day’s molten birth in a lingering drought, the slow- passing clouds dialing down the light on a gleaming spread of frost … icing on a burnt cake. --------------------------------------------------- A retired teacher of English and photography, Roger Pfingston is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards. He is the author of Something Iridescent, a collection of poetry and fiction, as well as four chapbooks: Earthbound, Singing to the Garden, A Day Marked for Telling, and What’s Given, the latter recently published by Kattywompus Press.

Fish Story by Shawndra Miller My dog runs ahead on the deserted golf course, galloping across a wooden bridge that spans Pleasant Run. Along the creek’s border, denuded trees scratch at the low sky. As always, this winter afternoon, my friend Alma and I fall deep into conversation about the implied lessons behind every little trial in our lives. I’m attempting to conquer chronic pain; she’s raising two teenagers on her own. The bridge's bounce carries us along. Mid-bridge Alma seizes my arm. More observant than I, she draws my attention downward to the planks under our feet: "Is that a fish ?" We gape down at a silvery body, narrower than my hand, long as a glove. A smear of red on the wooden slats. A stillness, then a sudden movement that we sense more than see—"Is he still breathing ?" We bend closer, and the round white lips widen in a spasm of something like hope. Really, do fishes hope? Maybe it was fear that opened the lips and drew in t...