• Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Painted Bride Quarterly

  • About
    • About PBQ
    • People
  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Print Annuals
  • Podcast
    • Latest Podcast
    • All Podcasts
  • News & Events
  • Submit
  • Shop
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Contributors
  • Current Issue

Jenny Rossi: Burnt Heart

February 5, 2015 by PBQ

Scraping toast. His voice is the sound of someone scraping toast.
Little bits of emotion crumbling all over the floor, and you should
be cleaning it up, but GODDAMN the sound is killing you! His
eyes are two round eggs, cracked and leaking. Suddenly you
realize you’re hungry, and lift up a knife (a knife! how did it get
there?) and his cheeks are so soft and pink, two round Canadian
bacons. And this is how murder starts. You didn’t mean it, really.
Be American. Go back for seconds. Again and again. He’s crying
now. But I’m hungry, you whisper. His ears are like butter. Melt
them with lips and knife. Hold the leftovers overnight. Share them
among friends. His cries are the bubbles from a mimosa, rising and
tickling; they run out your nose when laughing.

Filed Under: Contributors 91, Issue 91, Prose, Prose 91 Tagged With: Contributors 91, Jenny Rossi, Prose, Prose 91

Reader Interactions

Primary Sidebar

Recent News & Events

PBQ @ AWP!

PBQ Poet’s Publishing Premier: Carlos Andrés Gómez’s Fractures

Issue 100 Has Arrived!

Temporarily Closing Submissions

PBQ presents: Slam Bam Reboot

© 2020 Painted Bride Quarterly. Contact PBQ: info@pbqmag.org