My Cardboard Balcony

Old Folk Song by Belinda Roddie You played me an old folk song on an eleven-string guitar, because one of the strings had sailed away on a cloud as dense as a bayou. You fed me crushed pretzels from a paper bag, and you showed me how to play one tune, just one, using only three basic chords, but still providing a melody we could sing, and the birds could rest and listen. As the days got drier, and the rain didn't fall as hard or as hyperactively on the plateau, you let me drink longer from the fountain than you did, just so the headaches that I was used to getting night after night went away a little faster. You brought your guitar over again one afternoon, and you gave it to me for keeps, and that was when I knew, but I wouldn't say a thing. Sometimes, when the shovel is propped against the back of the shed, and the monolith of mourning marble has been erected, there is still an old folk song that you played for me on your eleven-string guitar, an

I found the broken clasp of my aunt's necklace in the driveway, just before I got into my mom's minivan and we mentally prepared ourselves for the funeral. It was amazing how it was still here, staring without eyes up into the suburban sky, without being stepped on or run over by heavy, unforgiving tires. It had held together my aunt's favorite jewelry, and her heart had been broken when it broke. I picked up the fragment of gold, and it felt warm in my hand.