My Cardboard Balcony

Her Bodily Treasures by Belinda Roddie She drew honeycomb from her ear and lit it in a dark room, the amber spreading beneath her hand and molding shadows into sticky statuettes, ready to dance for dinner. I watched the wax melt into a perturbed puddle of sweetness, the lost hum of bees haunting me as I held my ribcage between my fingers. All the heat was lost from us; all the gold was lost from us. But from her orifices, she pulled the last luxuries of a past life into the dusk. She saved dawn for last. I saw pink stain the skies again. I could hardly breathe. There was silver in both our eyes.

There sat the lonely gentleman, with his crumpled hat in his hands, his chin lifted so that his beard pointed toward his assumed heavens. His eyes were hidden behind very, very thick glasses, and even the lens seemed glazed with a personal fog that he could not shrug off his visage. I tried to sit beside him, but it was as if the wind pushed me away from the bench. It made me wonder if the lonely stranger, in the end, was meant to be abandoned all along.