My Cardboard Balcony

A Pillow Made of Ice by Belinda Roddie A pillow made of ice was brought to me for my slumber within the grand palace. It turned to icicles against my face while somber morning fiercely broke upon my frozen brow. The blankets on my back became the snow outside, and I shivered as my prince stumbled through the door, drunk as can be, with a fair maiden clinging to his belt. His eyes were melting brown and gold. Their gaze did not focus on me at all. He snored against a pillow stuffed with fine feathers, while I turned into winter mist. A pillow made of ice was brought to me so I would not smother the king-to-be.

The cacti grew in the winter snow. The bears were lumbering in the tundra. Dry grass growing red roses in autumn. Leaves falling in the blazing heat. I filled a mug with cocoa and sat on the porch, watching the rainbow in the sky melt the frost away. My skin had grown tough and very, very dark. My eyes were dusted silver instead of river blue. This was the way life worked now.

The Nile by Belinda Roddie On the Nile one day, a majestic ship of white princesses with their hair frizzed and lips red careened across the currents kicking algae to the rocks and the voice of the Nile said, go forth, and paid no heed to the wreckage of life and broken shore the princesses left behind. Then a little boat teetered across the troubled foam where a girl in boys' clothing asked for safe passage but the Nile coiled up like a snake and refused to hear her, sealing its watery ears to pleas and honest cries. And as the boat crashed, the girl fled and took the weary road instead.

Daniel had packed a dessert for his trip to the desert. He brought along a case of water and a bottle of bourbon. He set up a picnic with no one to eat with. He read a Hemingway book. He fell asleep in the sand. When he woke up, he had a Rip Van Winkle beard and the desert was now a valley, with clear running streams. And when he drank from it, it tasted like mud and sand and the parched sensation of a dead man.

Post-Holiday by Belinda Roddie When you wrap the lights around you, I get an eerie sense of déjà vu. All the colors taste the same on my memory's tongue - sweet, but with an uncomfortable afterthought. You made brioche for Christmas again, and pluck-it bread for Easter, and I dipped two fingers into your coffee mug and spread the charcoal residue around my mouth like lipstick. There are some things I care to remember, things that aren't so sugary, as I briskly sweep the needles away.

For dessert, we ate a chocolate pie, loaded with homemade whipped cream. We drank warm milk that frothed up around our lips and then kissed each other's milk mustaches. We snuggled. We cuddled. We shrieked and we giggled. We were children again, even when in our forties and fifties. Howard fell asleep that night and didn't wake up the next morning. But when I saw him sprawled on the couch, he had the smile of a schoolboy. And despite my tears, I couldn't help smiling, too.

Mother, May I? by Belinda Roddie Mother wore cerulean silk today. She sat by the marina where sailboats bounced about the folds of her sleeves. An old optometrist stumbled into her because he had lost his glasses (funny story, really), and after sweating apologies through his skin, he asked her if she'd like a coffee. But Mother didn't move from her soggy perch. The golden brooch nestled between her two mountains swarmed with honeybees molding sweet comb. The tails of her coat drifted as far as the battered bridge where Father's fog stubbornly sat.