My Cardboard Balcony

Kiss Me Six Times by Belinda Roddie Kiss me six times after our morning trips to grab coffee and chocolate chip scones. Kiss me five times so that my heart does skips whenever we're together and alone. Then kiss me four times by the Christmas tree and during New Year's while the countdown starts, and on Valentine's Day, let's make it three kisses with red roses and paper hearts. Two kisses before we go off to bed, to help us sleep and have less somber dreams. One kiss before I go to work and when I come back to our children's happy screams. And even when, my love, you're dead and gone, I'll give you seven kisses and a song.

The cold gray water nourished me, and I lay my head across the bed of pines and tried to sleep. The somber pounding of hooves against the dirt as troops sought for me has been reduced to an insistent echo in the left corner of my mind. I was almost too afraid to close my eyes, thinking that the men wearing black uniforms would return.