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

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

I wish I could see the stars every night, not just on clear nights, or from a place of high elevation, or from a place with low light pollution, or when the air is dry, or when the moon is waning or new.

locating Canis Major
and Canis Minor
neighbourhood dogs howl

Farah Ali