Wings & Other Things by Chauna Craig

Wings & Other Things by Chauna Craig

Wings & Other Things is a book of migrations. Its characters flutter and flap, take off and land, then take off again as they seek the places they belong. These are characters caught in transition: a widow searching for a past self on an Impossible Blue coast, lovers explaining to the police and themselves why they're hiding in a Nebraska cornfield, a teacher on a flight from Chengdu struggling to be understood, a stranded artist accepting a ride from a stranger on a highway haunted by the ghost of a woman who never made it home. Each story is a transformation as Craig turns railroad tracks into an infinite number line and a lightning bolt into a tentacle of the unseen. A plastic fork becomes a parable of fragility, and a scrap moon is an image of what is lost and what yet remains. Even a single word captures longing, instinct, regret, and stubborn hope: Fly, fly, fly.