here the jasood is in bloom, fresh tender leaves tremble.
that shrub decked with pretty purple flowers
joyous in a peach dawn, it is just is.
someplace the neon nights are endless
somewhere a distant planet wobbled.

Almost 55 words

Cheating 1
“Was… was she very pretty?” He didn’t reply, turned to the other side of the bed instead. ”So when did it begin?” she whispered, tracing a different name in the sweat on his back.

Cheating 2
Click. The last fifty million transferred out to a Cayman Island account. All booked as expense in the main company. Every penny accounted for. Full and final. The phone buzzed. “Sure, send the auditors in. And make it quick. I have a Corporate Excellence Award to go to.”

187

tracks clatter to the distance.
twin strips of gleaming metal,
welded with rivets, sweat, grease.
gleaming tracks,
wiped clean.
free
of flesh shards, blood,
detritus, grime.
hammered strips of gleaming metal
meet someplace
where flowers
in memory
blood-red hibiscus, lilywhite
steal jealous color
from a widow’s ripped life.

see?
past the cobwebs and the grime.
just as luminous

Just this incredible sense of peace, and space.

Something about the play of sunlight on worn stone draws me back.
Something that I sort of know, but not quite.

Of tendrils carved in stone, a faint memory .
Even today the wind sighs over Bukhara.