My Cardboard Balcony

Monterey by Belinda Roddie The wharf is filled with yammering tonight, from tourists and restless sea lions alike. They are covered in lights. The radicchio on my tongue is harsh, but the bourbon in my baked apple cocktail is smooth. Instead of a punch, it's a caress on my tongue. We are close to the sea, so close that I can smell it. I can taste it and feel it absorbed in my skin. I could swim in it, dive in with all my clothes on, but the water is cold, and the clouds are still heavy, and my stomach is filled to the brim with delights, and your lips are so warm, so very warm, on my distended and unyielding flesh.

Every illness is terminal here. Every breath you struggle to obtain curtails your life second by second, hour by hour, day by day. The Order of the Clocks keep each member's pockets filled to the brim with broken minute hands. Their mustaches flick and swish as capably as a time bomb scraping away the last moments of the dying stars.