Monique Quintana
mapping peach and nautilus
For Jamie Moore
When queens probed you underwater to test your intellect, you grew scales and swam to the surface, but you decided to stay in the water because you thought it was safer. You used an ammonite rind to make a boat for your daughter. She sailed past ink monsters and silver kelp. When your daughter was beached, she asked herself, haven’t I been here before? Knowing what she knew about ammonite, she built a schoolhouse and taught her own damn self under the palms. She learned to examine the bones of nectar to put in resolutions. She wrote play scripts to rival the fuzzy parts of breathing. She missed breathing underwater.
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