MY FAMILY MADE A PACT WITH THE BEES

BY MONIQUE QUINTANA

and the hive is still there hanging over the washing machine. Expanding like my hair when I walk in the rain. In search of another man. Who wants to have an emotional affair? And fold clay into dinner cups and plates so we can playhouse. The bees listen to us murmur under the doorway, like a velvet blanket, I dragged from Cuetzalan. We make a cake and douse the windowsill flowers with imitation vanilla extract. I record myself talking for my She-Ra doll and try to make myself blonde. Learn the color of the maw under my nails when the wind bangs on my door at night, though I should be grateful. My sister says we’re going to The Continental grocery store on Blackstone Avenue, and I pack my bags because I want to cradle down in the fruit’s harvest. The misters wet my hair until it takes its natural bend. And I’m embarrassed by my hair even when I try not to be. Unhooking my feet from pomegranate shells never felt so lovely. Never felt so much like I am dolled fucked for sure. And you will have me for sure. I turn on the TV in my hotel room and catch a documentary about my colonizer ancestors blowing their busted hearts in the wind.

STAGE LOCKET

BY MONIQUE QUINTANA

Crow investigates the sea and begins to fight with his own reflection in the water. His sick self.  The crow twins are so engrossed in their arguing that they don’t notice that yellow roses have sprouted up from the water and all around them like a fence. The woman walking along the beach marvels at the scene and writes a list on her hand. A remedy. Snail pulse. A cloud beat. Salt around the eyes that becomes a mask. Crow pecks bone out of the sand with such ferocity that he makes a dress. Frightened by the art that he’s made, he abandons it there on the sand. The fragments tremble and ache. You, sister, pick up the dress, quick, your nails to the blue, and sigh because it would be unforgivable to rob our mother of her sea. Crow collects green bottle fragments until he has pieces to build a castle. Inside the castle, there is a papier mâché doll with black hair. The doll longs for a machine to take her to a table set with a warm bowl of soup with cilantro. To a brined kitchen. To clay parts. To a clock that resembles the ticking of a water bee.

Monique Quintana (She/Her/Hers) is the author of Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019). Her work has been supported by Yaddo, The Community of Writers, Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Storyknife. You can find her at moniquequintana.com and on Instagram and X @quintanagothic