from nytimes, perfect for the soon-to-be miserable weather - multinational iterations of chicken soup =)

Pastoral.

From the hall, a smell of cooking intrudes,
wraps around the room and bed linens -- in other houses,
fixtures are bolted stoic and revealing nothing.
Voices, din.

Two women smoking quietly.

From the balcony.

See the framed us:

a family of two eating children:
one boy one girl the father drinking tea the mother
going from one to the other, the white dog watching like a
whitedog clock on the wall.

When I finish shifting my eyes, you disappear.

Jars of fruits steeped in alcohol reclaim
for themselves shelves.

I retrieve my trickeries.

What you have, I have the lesser of it.