My Cardboard Balcony

Desert Sunset by Belinda Roddie Think of all the reds and blues you can find on a natural canvas while tending to lazy horses in a field of brown and gold. The pinks linger inside your mouth where I let my tongue rest after seven shots of strawberry and the salt of margaritas lingering in a sharp Arizona evening air.

Someone drank too much whiskey and tried to operate the forklift that had been abandoned outside the warehouse where business used to boom. The whole thing toppled and pinned the poor bastard to the ground, and he bled profusely from both his nose and mouth, and he wound up unresponsive by the time he was carted to the hospital. I was just starting as the intern of a surgeon when I saw his wife crying over his body, which had been connected to a spider web of metal and plastic tubes.