No longer riding
rock drills
Burhan pours rice
in boiling water
pulls naan
out of a cloth bag.
His kidneys failing
he’s breathed
too much.
Red cough
black cracks
in his nails.
Waiting for miners
beneath
the Hindu Kush Mountains
he spreads dough
around the tandoor’s
hot sides.
Cylindrical
like the earth’s chambers.
Chisels & hammers
slash walls
gash the land
for an emerald
to lay
in a piggish palm.
Brief Biography: Chella Courington is a writer and teacher. With a Ph.D. in American and British Literature and an MFA in Poetry, she is the author of four poetry and three flash fiction chapbooks. Her poetry and stories appear in numerous anthologies and journals including SmokeLong Quarterly, Nano Fiction, The Los Angeles Review, and The Collagist. Her recent novella, The Somewhat Sad Tale of the Pitcher and the Crow, is available at Amazon. Reared in the Appalachian South, she now lives…
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