The Invention of Flight (13 page)

The mother picks up the airplanes in the dark, keeps dancing without music as she goes to Melissa and kisses the top of her head; the slick fabric of her jacket rubs the daughter's face. Sparks jump from Melissa's hair. I sink against a wall, touch a curtain, wonder why it has taken me so long to understand this, so simple, watch the mother waddle through the door. I am alone with the daughter sitting quietly in the chair. I feel a great sadness as I go to her and touch her hair where the mother has kissed her, feeling the room, the house, the town, the places we are all standing, slightly but definitely shake loose from the dust and begin to rise.

David Walton,
Evening Out

Leigh Allison Wilson,
From the Bottom Up

Sandra Thompson,
Close-Ups

Susan Neville,
The Invention of Flight

Mary Hood,
How Far She Went

François Camoin,
Why Men Are Afraid of Women

Molly Giles,
Rough Translations

Daniel Curley,
Living with Snakes

Peter Meinke,
The Piano Tuner

Tony Ardizzone,
The Evening News

Salvatore La Puma,
The Boys of Bensonhurst

Melissa Pritchard,
Spirit Seizures

Philip F. Deaver,
Silent Retreats

Gail Galloway Adams,
The Purchase of Order

Carole L. Glickfeld,
Useful Gifts

Antonya Nelson,
The Expendables

Nancy Zafris,
The People I Know

Debra Monroe,
The Source of Trouble

Robert H. Abel,
Ghost Traps

T. M. McNally,
Low Flying Aircraft

Alfred DePew,
The Melancholy of Departure

Dennis Hathaway,
The Consequences of Desire

Rita Ciresi,
Mother Rocket

Dianne Nelson,
A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

Christopher Mcllroy,
All My Relations

Alyce Miller,
The Nature of Longing

Carol Lee Lorenzo,
Nervous Dancer

C. M. Mayo,
Sky over El Nido

Wendy Brenner,
Large Animals in Everyday Life

Paul Rawlins,
No Lie Like Love

Harvey Grossinger,
The Quarry

Ha Jin,
Under the Red Flag

Andy Plattner,
Winter Money

Frank Soos,
Unified Field Theory

Mary Clyde,
Survival Rates

Hester Kaplan,
The Edge of Marriage

Darrell Spencer,
CAUTION Men in Trees

Robert Anderson,
Ice Age

Bill Roorbach,
Big Bend

Dana Johnson,
Break Any Woman Down

Gina Ochsner,
The Necessary Grace to Fall

Kellie Wells,
Compression Scars

Eric Shade,
Eyesores

Catherine Brady,
Curled in the Bed of Love

Ed Allen,
Ate It Anyway

Gary Fincke,
Sorry I Worried You

Barbara Sutton,
The Send-Away Girl

David Crouse,
Copy Cats

Randy F. Nelson,
The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

Greg Downs,
Spit Baths

Peter LaSalle,
Tell Borges If You See Him: Tales of Contemporary Somnambulism

Anne Panning,
Super America

Margot Singer,
The Pale of Settlement

Andrew Porter,
The Theory of Light and Matter

Peter Selgin,
Drowning Lessons

Geoffrey Becker,
Black Elvis

Lori Ostlund,
The Bigness of the World

Linda LeGarde Grover,
The Dance Boots

Jessica Treadway,
Please Come Back To Me