My Cardboard Balcony

Has Been by Belinda Roddie Has been drinking again, even though I told him not to, even when his blue eyes became flecked with dark, dark, dark gold. Has been firing lousy shots at a microwave because it won't heat his casserole properly. Has been cussing. Has been shouting. Has been crying. Hasn't seen daylight since his wife keeled over in the kitchen all wide-eyed with fried fish in her hair.

The food was bland, and the show Herman was watching on the telly was even blander. I left the flat and took the lift down to the bottom floor, where I saw a girl carrying the laundry in. Her clothes were bland, too. All whites and pastel pinks. I went out for a smoke near the Thames and let the smells knock me backward.

After Dinner by Belinda Roddie gray gray obtuse angle the way I hold my pen and the way you kiss me with your arms like clamps and your lips scaley from the bread you've just eaten round and round we tumble between the cushions grease spittle against my cheek the ricochet bounce momentum of your teeth

"Savage Garden? I remember them! Their songs were so marvelously sappy." We were rummaging through our boxes and towers of CDs before Dad started the garage sale. Rhonda had uncovered several of her Celine Dion disks, while I had found my Backstreet Boy ones. We giggled like schoolgirls again as we searched. "To think I occasionally still listen to all this," I laughed.

Lillies dancing across pads of green and brown. The fall mixing with the spring air. Chimney smoke trapped under a frothy sun. You exit your office building with your briefcase dripping with coffee. Your co-worker spilled his mug across your lap. You sit by the pond for a bit and let your cheeks grow red in the hybrid of heat and frost. You are alone, and you are happy.

by Belinda Roddie "I'll fucking kill you!" He's smashing his fist into tables, sending splinters into the air. He's searching for the girl with bushy eyebrows and short hair. He's looking for the "she-man." "I'll kill you!" She stands there quietly, calmly. One hand clasping the porcelain wrist. The girlfriend shakes but holds on tight. Her fingers stroke the leather jacket. "I'll - " He stops with a hole in his chest. He drops. Dust clears. All calm. An old cowboy lowers a hidden handgun. Skeletal shells hollow on the floor. He lets the smoke rile the tips of his wispy beard. There is quiet in the bar. Quiet down the street. Quiet for the girl holding her love against her shoulder. The girl who wants to be a man holds her back. The cowboy tips his hat and calls her, "Sir." A very polite smile. He lets them walk out quietly, somberly. Their footprints do not track the blood. The sirens begin ...

The oil dripping from the pipe was a bright, bright silver. Not golden brown nor pitch black like muddy tar on a warm asphalt road. We took a bottle of it and brewed it in the bellies of our truck, and the truck ran for months without needing a refill. Everyone wanted some of this miracle oil, but we didn't know how it had happened. A fluke in the system or some mishap of nature. But all the same, people wanted it. And they wanted it fast.