Monique Quintana – Stereo Baptism

Monique Quintana

Stereo Baptism

              For Arielle K. Jones

There is a gazelle that waits at our door, mawing until we forgive our mothers. With her, we open our fields emptied of color and paint them green. The rains come in and wash the color off. There’s no feed in the clouds to give us substance, and there’s no river to bathe us. We cut the field in its stomach and eat the matter, and it weeps and says, you’re almost here.