Inside Yourself

In the kitchen, you hold a pepper like a heart before dropping it into the skillet. There, it turns into a real heart. It pumps at regular intervals as it sizzles. I have to find who owns this heart, you say. Light pulses across its surface like breath against a windowpane. Your face glows orange as you watch the heart. You inhale the smell—myrrh, burning blood, and gold.

 
 
 

Brian Clifton co-edits Bear Review. His work appears in: The Pinch, Whiskey Island, Southeast Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere.