It actually crosses my mind to shift lanes so I can avoid making eye contact with the homeless man standing at the stoplight. Green it says, so my path continues, frictionless.
just in time
a water strider
skims the surface
Lorraine A Padden
*title taken from a Shakespeare sonnet
‘I’ll trade you one broken promise in mint condition for five nasty splinters. Or I can do a gross of bitterness, say, for ten flesh wounds. How deep? A quarter inch max. No? Not even with a rusty blade?
‘Well how about three cartons of despair still in their original boxes, let’s say, for twenty paper cuts each, administered consecutively. No?
‘Now here’s a steal you can’t resist: one awful truth for a train-load of bruises. Can you swing it? No? What if I pay shipping?’
Gary LeBel
With a pencil and an X we avoid treasure islands, slip out of a bureaucrat’s non-essential attire, and skid out of a booth.
new boundaries
the elephant in the room
is farting
Alan Summers
The train connections decide to switch things up. A man of indeterminate age removes his seat, declares undying love in the most common travelling language. Luggage bunches up.
Euston Station—
a sandwich filling
minds the gap
Alan Summers
While in the elevator browsing for what to browse, the power outage. Moons look up from their phones wondering why them! Every other, on the last flight for the day, has a nest in his eye. Flying in hemp and corn comes with wedding ornithology for the love of a feather.
chimera
sparrows graze
the glass window
Daya Bhat
A fledgling on my windowsill this morning. From nowhere the little girl rises to my throat as the bluebird day flies in the mnemonic of a mnemonic in its beak. The robin wishes to be each and every one of them. But you see, it’s the rain tree! What else the residue but the cicadas’ smirk and my nostalgia.
barking democracy
the pack of strays chases
a new stray
Daya Bhat
The meds are making me delirious. You come and sit next to me. I try to hold your hand but all I manage to grasp is a dead squirrel. I shout with fear. Another prick and I am in Bali.
nothing left of the ice cubes summer mirage
Mona Bedi
There is no middle path for a middle class. Either you choose the left or the right.
a political storm brewing in the corner tea shop
R. Suresh Babu
The misshapen occurred when he was scouring the pooram ground for unburnt crackers. He wanted to gift a flower pot cracker to his son on his birthday. He goes around on his tricycle selling lottery tickets now.
timber yard
the bruised heel
of an old tusker
R. Suresh Babu
‘Doctors? You’re better off not going near them. They’re only good for lancing boils,’ said Joe, a house painter who suffered from asthmatic bronchitis. You could follow him to the pub by his trail of green mucus.
Shea had a little toe which turned black. ‘Maybe it’ll fall off’, he said. It was gangrenous and the smell off him was sickening. His wife forced him down to the local G.P. who referred him to the hospital. He died soon after.
When asked how he was, John would always say, ‘grand’. However, he would follow this with a litany of complaints. ‘I passed a torrent of blood. He was taking my blood pressure. I thought my arm would break!’
Willie was up in the hospital being examined by a young doctor. ‘I can’t find anything wrong with you,’ the doctor said. Willie replied, ‘well, will you send somebody out who can find something wrong with me!’
bodies queuing
XRAY, MRI, CT and ultrasound scans –
but terror will not show
Gerry McDonell
the other bunny 