Probably, this book, if it fell into the hands of a harsh critic, could not be called a “wreath of sonnets.” Well, okay, so be it, but the ending of every story (...and not just mine!) is always the beginning of a new one. And the thought that ends the previous short story, quietly, as if in a whisper, suggests the first line of the next one. Very often this thought is simple, does not look like an aphorism, does not even resemble a maxim... The simpler the phrase, the clearer the meaning. And in general: poetry does not always lie in rhymed lines. And in our absolutely prosaic life, poetry hides in the most unexpected places. Masked!.. But, despite the prose advancing on all fronts, meetings and partings, quarrels and reconciliations, losses and gains, births and departures rhyme. Harmony is not obvious, but it is there.