A Lustrous Interior
Tara Isabel Zambrano

MY HEART falls out on a sidewalk, a thick fluid staining the concrete. I gather the pieces and shove it my pocket, drops of blood on my inner thighs. At home, I staple it, crisscross it with scotch tape, try to balance it on the kitchen counter, but it cracks opens like a pomegranate, a dark constellation of want in the center. I pull it apart with a fork, wash it clean of twigs, dirt and despair. I wonder what it would say if it had a mouth, if words would fall like seeds and sprout a language Iā€™d hardly understand.

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 Tara Isabel Zambrano works as a semiconductor chip designer. Her work has been published in Tin House Online, The Southampton Review, Slice, Triquarterly, Yemassee, Passages North and others. Recently she served as Flash Fiction Editor at Newfound.org. Tara moved from India to the United States two decades ago and holds an instrument rating for single engine aircraft. She lives in Texas.

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