My Cardboard Balcony

So Soon by Belinda Roddie So soon do stars bring weary men to sleep upon the rugged riverbed at night. They do not know what company they keep, nor, when morning comes, there will be light. The sun grows dimmer each cold, passing day, and frost grows even in the midst of June, painting landscapes a chilly blue and gray, forming icy cratered lips like the moon has kissed Mother Earth hard and rough enough to cause the warmth in her to dissipate, like watching heat being drawn from tough blood with a natural syringe. Yes, men wait to wake up in a world where we don't sleep and shiver in the summer snows so deep.

We met at the Channel Five coffee shop on a weekly basis, always ordering mochas and always waiting for a Channel Five news bus to be situated outside. We knew why the shop had that name, though - it was because the owner's last name was Channel, and he was the fifth child out of seven in his family. He went by Chan colloquially, and he always winked at me when he handed me my drink. "We're not dating," I'd always remind him, trying not to pay attention my attractive friend as she waited for me at the corner table.