Milk Candy Review

Eric the Astronomer lives alone, in a tower made of memories. Old notebooks, scribbled front and back. The musings of a day, rendered indecipherable by time. Yellowing sheet music of songs reticently tinkled for loved ones who appreciated the effort. Copper-bottomed frying pans which made French toast on Sunday mornings.

The things that are left behind after a life has happened.

He sleeps most of the day in his bric-a-brac minaret, until night falls and the stars and the planets come out, answering his call to prayer.

With mighty Jupiter he shares a glass of Scotch, and talks of his father – of whom he remembers very little – apart from the way he used to wink with just the corner of an eye. How that one tiny gesture would make him feel bigger than himself.

He dances with gentle Venus and tells her his favourite memories of Juliet and the life they shared together. Tonight it’s the time it was too rainy to take a boat out on Rydal Water, and a goose chased them along the lakefront. Neptune laughs.

Venus twirls across the firmament, and as she spins, she unravels spacetime like a spool of silk. The fabric of the universe detaches itself, rending apart the threads of this great celestial tapestry, and it’s as if Eric could reach out in to the nothingness and touch Juliet’s fingers one last time.

The solar system rearranges itself around him, and a single object falls slowly from the sky, dragging a comet’s tail in its wake. It’s an umbrella, and it lands softly at the top of the tower.

And so it goes on for Eric, night after night – this dance, this worship. And every night, Eric’s tower grows a little taller, heaven gets a little nearer.

Walking in Prospect Park, in the sun’s first warmth, magnolia trees seem to be involved in their own contagion, ignoring the rash of people, who hurry to get out of their heads full of worry. No one notices that the trees are congested with heavy pink buds, ready to unfurl.  The people rush past, with caps pulled down, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who might tell them to go home. Where is home? The magnolia branches point in all directions. She stops and takes a picture of this profusion, in

spite of feeling nervous about being seen outside.

***

M.J. Iuppa  is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program and Lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College; and since 2000 to present, is a part time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Since 1986, she has been a teaching artist, working with students, K-12, in Rochester, NY, and surrounding area. Most recently, she was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017. She has four full length poetry collections, This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017), Small Worlds Floating (2016) as well as Within Reach (2010) both from Cherry Grove Collections; Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003); and 5 chapbooks. She lives on a small farm in Hamlin, NY.

First came the miracles: all the guns melted, the forest fires quenched, one child unwrecked, then three, four, thousands. When she appeared, her halo so deeply rainbowed it gleamed luscious black, the oceans shivered. Riot and strike, emblems of her right hand; text and rough song, emblems of her left. Tenderly, so tenderly, her holy gaze gathered beheaded mountains, plains soaked deep with oil, water-poisoned cities. She stung our lips with the nettles of her mercy until we whispered her newborn name over the bones of our untroubled dead, and rose to save our lives.

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Carolyn Oliver’s very short prose and prose poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Indiana Review, Jellyfish Review, jmww, Unbroken, Tin House Online, Copper Nickel, Midway Journal, and New Flash Fiction Review, among other journals. Carolyn lives in Massachusetts with her family. Links to more of her writing can be found at carolynoliver.net.

The meter starts, numbers twisting and ticking away, and it doesn’t matter because numbers are a made-up thing like love.

The city outside whirs by, men hammering buildings together, baby carriages, and store signs, all of it blurry and Monet. I’ll put this painting in my head with the others.

The cab driver is 55 or 80, a hug of gray hair around his head. I don’t think much about cab drivers. I figure they like it that way.

My mother, of course, is dying.

The cab driver drives past the hospital. “Wait,” I tell him, “I said St. Elizabeth’s.”

“I know, he says, switching off the meter. “Let’s go look at the river instead.” I’ve heard of things like this. Kidnappings, hijackings.

One minute, my mother was asking if I wanted my eggs scrambled or fried.

The cab driver’s eyes in the rearview. “Hospitals can wait a few minutes,” he says. “My daughter,” he continues, “she was only five.”

When we get to the river, the slap of an autumn morning as we step out of the cab. All around us, the usual joggers, the seagulls climbing the sky.

“Those birds,” he says, “they have this sense of direction. It’s built into their wings.”

We get back into the cab. We head to the hospital. I open the window and let in a whoosh of air, a sudden swoop underneath my arms.

***

Francine Witte is the author of four poetry chapbooks and two full-length collections, Café Crazy and The Theory of Flesh from Kelsay Books. Her flash fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologized in the most recent New Micro (W.W. Norton) Her novella-in-flash, The Way of the Wind has just been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, and her full-length collection of flash fiction, Dressed All Wrong for This was recently published by Blue Light Press. She lives in New York City.

When you drop your ice cream cone, you can ask your mom to share hers with you. Yours was a twist, but hers is vanilla, and even though it’s not your favorite, it’s sweeter now, more satisfying. While you’re still prickling with longing for the melting lump on the pavement, you’re okay. When you’ve used up your favorite watercolor brick – Prussian Blue – the color of the northern sky as it darkens, the sea when it’s deep, but not too deep, and the boat in your dreams, you can try to remake it with other colors. A different blue, a purple-r blue emerges, might you like that too? When your first boyfriend stops calling, you can put a dinosaur band-aid on your heart, tending to your pain, something tangible to touch, say, yes, this happened, but also, you will heal. When you move, when you miss all of your friends, when you even mourn your post office attendants, the trees you no longer see, you can begin again with new routines. Find a coffee shop where they always smile, find someone to go to a laughing meditation with, laugh it away until you’re crying, ha ha ha, ho ho ho, hee hee hee, and when you wipe the tears away, you feel a little better. When you get married, and your father isn’t there, you almost wish you had asked him to walk you down the aisle, but you thought it was too paternalistic, you asked him to read a poem instead, but now that he isn’t there, you wish you had given him that request. You can put one foot in front of another, and you can smile, you try not to cry, you look at all the people you love, you try not to cry. When your first pregnancy does not result in your first baby, you can hold a pillow at night. Imagine all the things that would have followed. When loved ones die, you can think of the good times, you think of their hard times. You wonder if they’re floating in the ether, if they’re meeting angels, if they’re mingling with grandparents, past pets. When you lose your job, you can make lists, reassess your strengths, try to reinvent yourself. In your doubt and your struggle, you try to find hope. When you lose your way, you can try to follow the breadcrumbs back to the beginning, and start again, with an ice cream cone.

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Melissa Saggerer has been a bellhop, a museum curator, and a library director. You can find her flash in Leopardskin & Limes. On twitter @MelissaSaggerer.