My Cardboard Balcony

Francisco's Fever Dream by Belinda Roddie City somnolence, a sleeping pill taken half past noon. A man shakes a coffee cup on the corner of Fifth and Market. No one seems happy. A chess piece breaks in half on a board. Trojan horse, split wide open, all the Romans spilling out in a confused heap of martyrdom. They don't look at the players, the tourists who rush by their tables. Their eyes are set at ten minutes to despair. I am sitting on a bench spotted with birdshit and meaningless graffiti. The code for the tag team has worn off to the most commonly used letter of the alphabet. How little I could put down if that letter were missing. It is a piece of me, a molar in my row of bottom teeth, a fragment of brick in an earthquake-disturbed church. The brisk, fragile creaking of wind vocalizing distrust to the contaminated bay water below. Loose, necessary strings of conversation in foggy corners and sticky diners. Symbolized by the frost. The g...

She sat on the throne of oak, and he on the chair of elm. They overlooked the crowd in silence, thorns decorating their foreheads in a Christ-like fashion. Their talons were hidden from view, their fangs tucked behind their smiling lips. She held a scepter of serpent scales, and somehow, it seemed to move as if it were alive.