Flyover
Mom ruined her $350 wedding dress running barefoot through a cornfield. The hem gathered silky topsoil like the wind. The guests passed Renee around like a sack of potatoes, cooing and talking to her sleeping body in gentle reassurances. They only heard Mom’s laughter, slicing through the static sky. When you come from a cornfield everything feels like progress. The slender green stalks swayed into infinity, artificial and unfit for human consumption, stretching toward the horizon in their summer growth. Eventually Mom came back crying and threw up in the Cedar River Grill bathroom, her blackened feet poking out from the stall. The white polyester lace piled up around her. All that forever space makes you question every significant thought you’ve ever had. Makes you wonder if you’re deep or just empty.
MICHAEL HARPER teaches at Northern New Mexico College. He received his MFA from the University of Idaho. His most recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ninth Letter, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, Fugue, Terrain.org, The Los Angeles Review, and others.
Read more by Michael Harper
Story in Ninth Letter
Story in X-R-A-Y Lit
Story in The Los Angeles Review