My Cardboard Balcony

South Of The Equator by Belinda Roddie I left home and made friends with a man in Lima, Peru, who always drank the sweet juice of a  pitahaya out of his shoe. He invited me in, and we danced until dawn, and he told me I ought to fall in love with his son. Well, we're married now, and we keep up a lodge in the Amazon, a quaint little tourist-y hodgepodge of color and music and lots of festejos , too, while his father continues to drink the dragon fruit brew from his shoe.

We were supposed to head to Smokey Village at sunset, and share a bottle of cinnamon cider to commemorate the new year; that was our tradition. But you had left me two nights ago, cold in my own bed, a small scribbled note placed on my nightstand informing me that you had gone off to busier streets and skyscrapers. I went to Smokey Village alone, with the sunset an angry orange in my face, the spice of the alcohol burning my tongue.