Flash fiction — “You know, Scottie,” she said, walking up the stairs with an envelope twisting between forefingers. “Nobody cares about virtues but money. That’s your value, honey. That’s what’s countable, what’s valuable.” She sat on a high-back couch turned against the bed, where Scott Bennett laid motionless, naked as her, with arms…

Flash fiction — A letter came. The address is Tay Grange 43, and by addressee stood Scott Bennett. It’s the third letter this month. Only the third, Gary thought, tapping a thin envelope to his right palm. He grinned widely like a child in a grocery store under the counter, watching a clerk…

Poetry — At the bar two men girded me the left drank ale while the right one said: “Go west, there’s always a chance!” “Yeah,” the left shouts, “Just your color may be a snag.” “Then walk to the east!” But the left one sighed. “Are you, my friend, completely out of your mind? East is bold.” “So let him…

Dancing in the circles of fen surface, she’s smiling up to the dark clouds. Her eyelids are closed, flooded with rain, soaking her night dress with bloody stains over her belly — the smudges that can’t be washed away. But she’s smiling now. Finally. Stares in windows around are mixed. Some people behind curtains see victim, some of them look at a murderer, and no one sees she’s smiling. Finally. But there, up in the attic room of blue house is that little girl with freckles shining on her face in flashing bolts, who can’t sleep tonight, sitting at a window sill of her bedroom and singing quietly:

Some stories come on mind, some stories out of heart. Man sits in wooden, shabby chair on patio, illuminated only by a full moon above, guarding him while God sleeps. …