My Cardboard Balcony

Digging Fragments by Belinda Roddie Pecan shrapnel scraped from a seashell bowl, cloak draped against a low-hung lamppost, where an old man smokes rolled up sand and exhales foam. When he talks, you can hear the ocean.

Determined to find the tavern, the bard struggled and staggered and stumbled and swaggered about the narrow road, his lute banging haphazardly against his exposed thigh. His wife had kicked him out of the cottage again, and by God, he was going to have a skinful of mead to make up for a lousy night. He hobbling into the dimly space and plopped down at a corner table, mopping his brow with his floppy hat. The wench strode over with a huff and puff.