LOST FLIGHT

by David Chorlton

Between the disappearance
and the find, there is a time
imagination flies
to an altitude above
unhappiness or discontent

and circles the globe
following the possibility
that nothing is wrong, that
the pilot simply tired
of gravity and when
his announcement was broadcast
in the cabin, all

the passengers applauded.
A wonderful lightness
took hold at a cruising speed
of survival with a view
down on the earthly struggle
where bad news

is the only kind expected,
but waiting for a signal
we can watch

for the perpetual flight
passing overhead: a silver
arrow pointing
at beyond, at
wherever it is
such freedom ends.

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection,"The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.

MONDAY

by D. Gilson

Image source: Mahogany Airplane Models

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 gone missing
on Saturday local time. Why am I just now
hearing about this? Cue my missing credit card.
Thank you for calling Chase-Visa, this is Mike.
Cancelled, remitted fraudulent charge, lower
interest rate in less than five minutes time.
Somewhere in the Pacific, 239 people missing.
I question the preposition: “in” or “over” or “under.”
I question memory: a single teenage night,
a school project due. Father builds a one-inch
model of the atom bomb, Little Boy. Boy,
he tells me, don’t let this happen again.
We’ve no access to flight logs, how many boys
might be crying or dead. Or will die. I lied
to my father. Put off the project so Nathan
and I could play terrorist, Israel and Palestine,
in the shed behind our house. I bind Nathan.
Demand ransom. In the shed we kiss, a mistake,
and I lop off his head. I wonder when the news
switches from “missing” to “presumed dead”
as the treadmill slows down, pulls time under.


D. Gilson is the author of Crush (Punctum Books, 2014) with Will Stockton, Brit Lit (Sibling Rivalry, 2013), and Catch & Release (Seven Kitchens, 2012), winner of the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, The Indiana Review, and PANK.

IN THE WAKE

by Anne Graue

 

Fuselage will float
from the sky
no longer burning

in the coming days.

Long after the search &
rescue has turned
to recovery;

long after the stages
of grief
have been observed

and discarded,

someone will find
a seatbelt, a cushion,
a glimmer of metal

or they will find
nothing at all.


Anne Graue writes poetry and teaches online from her home in New York's Hudson Valley. Her poems have appeared in Paradigm, Compass Rose, Sixfold Journal, and The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly, and she was a finalist in the Patricia Dobler Poetry Award competition for 2013. She has written reviews of literary magazines for NewPages.com.