They exploded, the oven contracting with that strange pop-whoosh of detonation. You’re supposed to pierce the skin first, force a knife or skewer through the skull-thick husk. Breathing holes for living things. We didn’t know, panic-threw the tray into the sink to cool the bursting fruit. The flesh was grooved like tiny cerebra or large thumbs, the bodies round like the curves of hearts and knuckles. You nestled one in your palm, caressed the splintered surface as though pacifying some small creature. It ruptured in a sudden exhalation of steam and shell and meat, a chest-leap moment. There was a small scald above your left eye, something charred and fibrous in your hair. For weeks we plucked the shrapnel from the rug, wiped clean walls and cupboards and floors. The belly of the stove remains choke-full of burnt skins, the kitchen ceiling star-speckled with a grainy constellation of hulls.
Chestnuts
Alyson Miller teaches writing and literature at Deakin University in Australia. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in both national and international publications, and she has written three collections of prose poetry: Dream Animals (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), Pika-Don (Mountains Brown Press, 2018), and Strange Creatures (Recent Work Press, 2019).