Almendras
My eyes are beautiful? she asks.
They’re like little almendras, he says.
:
They fall asleep in nightmare.
::
He dreams of a void so big he forgets who he is. He’s a dog digging a hole and the hole keeps growing and growing until his front legs fall from their sockets. The pile of dirt is as big as a house. It morphs into a mountain of rag dolls. Muñequitas feas with missing heads and hands. Dismembered bodies oozing cotton. Ugly little things. And her— a headless body swinging from his jaw.
:::
Can I have your eyes? he asks.
That’s weird, she says.
I can carry them in my pocket, he says.
::::
She opens her eyes and scoops them like a spoon gutting seeds from the uterus of a papaya. Her eyeballs roll in her hand. Two sticky marbles. She wraps them in a rosy ribbon and leaves them under a note: aquí estan tus almendras.