Pig’s Eye by Paul Jones
Most people have us take them out so they don’t explode when they’re cooking whole hog. In the pit, it’s not too bad. A little loud sometimes. And the mess looks like tears on the pig’s face. But cooking head-on on a spit is another matter. The first time I ever saw a pig’s eye explode, the juice shot about ten feet and left a hot smear up the back of the host. He had been there since dawn drinking and turning the spit. Mostly drinking. He had no idea what had happened. He fell on the ground. He ripped his shirt off. He finally vomited. Of course, none of that helped. So we let him lay there for a while. His wife was over on the other side of the fire making out with his brother. She didn’t seem to notice a damn thing that happened. When she finally did, she took a stick and poked out the eye that faced her. It oozed a little. And left those tears I was talking about.
Paul Jones: In anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems (1800 – Present). Chapbook: What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common. A manuscript of his poems crashed on the moon’s surface on April 11, 2019.