Our Flying Machine

We built ours out of old spoons, 
cereal boxes, broken window fan parts, 
garden hoses, fishing nets, fishing poles, 
shoe laces, shoe soles, styrofoam, a slinky, 

half a dozen frisbees, old textbooks, 
a jar of dandelions, the memory of a river, 
a set of crutches, a song of branches
plenty of spider silk, dog leashes, dog bowls, 

feathers we stole from used pillows, 
stove and washing machine parts, 
much of it welded together by 
passing sunlight through a magnifying glass,

and now that it’s all ready, we’re taking it 
as far as we can, to where the moon
draws chalk lines on the water, 
to the origins of the ocean’s voice. 

We’re going to circle the world 
then try to get back in time 
for Ben’s birthday. If not, 
we’ll make it up to him and bring him

a jar of stormcloud so he can
use it as a nightlight/white noise machine. 
You may not recognize us when we return, 
whenever that may be, but you’ll know us

by the strange, smokey scent 
of our clothes from the starfire, 
and the bits of lightning
threading through our beards

Grounded 

The neighbors are turning into earth again. 
Suddenly the kids look
like they’re starting to rust.

When they scratch their skin, dark dust
comes off that gathers on our sidewalk, 
and as I spray it off, it turns to mud. 

It takes about a week for them to become
moving statues made of dirt. 
I ask the dad, “Does it hurt?” 

He says, “You feel nothing, 
you can’t taste or smell.”
He grows a beard made of grass.

The mom has flowers on her shoulders. 
The kids walk to school swatting at birds
trying to eat their worms. 

They all live with it somehow. They laugh, 
flashing their teeth that are small stones now. 
I can’t believe I want what they have. 

I’m ready already for my flesh
to return to the dust, for my blood 
to become the youngest mud, 

and to feel pain when I see a child 
digging a hole in her yard 
with the sharp end of the skin. 

Marcus Whalbring is a Pushcart-nominated poet and author. His poetry collections include A Concert of Rivers from Milk & Cake Press, as well as How to Draw Fire from Finishing Line Press and Just Flowers from Crooked Steeple Press. A graduate of the MFA program at Miami University, his poems and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Space & Time, Haven Spec, Illumen, The Dread Machine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Abyss & Apex, Spaceports and Spidersilk, Cortland Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Spry, and Underwood Press, among others. He’s a high school teacher, a father, and a husband. Learn more about his work at www.marcuswhalbring.com

About the illustrator: Yoon Park is a dynamic student enrolled at an international school in Seoul, South Korea. She channels her creative energy into writing and visual art and finds joy in expressing herself through these mediums. Additionally, she has a passion for music and spends her spare time playing the piano or the guitar. Her dedication to her craft has earned her recognition and admission into the prestigious Sewanee Young Writers Conference.