Monique Quintana – Turpentine is the color of serpent

Monique Quintana

Turpentine is the color of serpent

            For Sallie Saiz

is the color of codices. A girl is born inside a codex. There are pages of a snake pit to tell her the difference between this reptile from the next. There are reptiles with honor and dishonor. She reads that dreams about reptiles mean fear. She dreams of turtles. They are in aquariums all over her house, and she keeps forgetting to feed them. They remind her how she forgot herself. She left her house and honed earth until she hit stone, and it gave her blessings again. The stone grows a wall of sunflowers on American avenue. If only she could turn them to stone, she said, so they could not lose their color.

Joseph Rios – Field Guide: Calwa, CA

Joseph Rios

Field Guide: Calwa, CA

In our neighborhood there is a tree that produces 
bags of Hot Cheetos and Cool Ranch Doritos.
In the fall, I rake the empty bags from the rain gutter. 

The parked cars are covered in layers of dust. 
I tell neighbor kids a giant spider came through years ago 
and trapped these cars with a big spray of its webs. 

The roosters spend mornings strolling the sidewalks 
like old people from the 1950s. They even tip their hats
to each other as they casually smoke their glass pipes. 

The fathers belong to an ancient tribe of bulldog worshipers. 
They shave their heads and tattoo paw prints on their faces. 
I’m told it’s customary to wear thigh high socks with sandals.

Every scary pooch around here is named after a Disney character 
and has its own Mexican grandma that shuffles around 
with a walker and a hose sprinkler to every corner of their yard. 

When I’m not home, I watch the cigartree do yoga
on the doorbell camera. When the stray cats join in, 
I zoom in as they take turns impersonating one another. 

Monique Quintana – The color of Saturday

Monique Quintana

The color of Saturday

            For Jackie Huertaz

is burned until it dissipates. In the smoke of the valley, a girl stands near the train tracks making animal balloons into lions for sale. She decides to keep them because they call her guide, and they call her advisor. They paw to Banda music. They to paw to sacrifice. She gives them mouths to speak and tails to run any way they want to. The morning she learns their names, they walk off into the cold smoke and the mountains.

Joseph Rios – El Pino, East LA: A Return

Joseph Rios

El Pino, East LA: A Return

For Jose Olivarez

All my homies are gone. Dead would be an improvement
for some of them. Abuela and Bora are in the ground somewhere.
Jennifer? Still lost, I guess. Who is left? I drove by Angel’s
mom’s old pad and saw an older, fatter looking Angel
melting on the porch. He was missing a foot, but the other
was wearing a fresh white sneaker. I didn’t stop to say whatsup.

El Pino follows me like a ghetto bird with its beam of light
trained on me. I see it when I step off the curb and hurry
across Brooklyn Ave. They call it Cesar Chavez now?
Damn, shit is wild. I went to the alley lookin’ for you, Jen.
I ain’t gonna lie about it. You’re just probably dead, 
which means you might be around here and I can’t shake it.

I went walking through Evergreen Cemetery looking for names
I might remember. All these paisas sound like someone
I used to know: Manny Hernandez, Gabriel Ruiz,
Andy Zepeda, Maricela Nevarez, Yesi Saldivar.
I imagine there’s a grave here with my name on it,
a piece of dry grass just for me. A cube of
cracked clay like Abuela’s hands and face, a place
where I can rest and grow dandelions from my kneecaps.

Maybe I already died and I’m just an old ghost of East Los,
banished from these lands and cursed to walk these rows
alone. I mean, the vieja at Cinco Puntos didn’t even wave to me
when I ordered my carnitas. Abuela’s old house looks new
and has a horizontal fence. The line of compas coming through
for chile verde is gone. Like me and the milkman, the video store
is just a memory falling off an old tree like a dry leaf
smashing into little pieces underneath someone’s punkass foot.

Monique Quintana – We Fell in Love to Aquarium Radio

Monique Quintana

We Fell in Love to Aquarium Radio

            For Brenda Venezia

and built nurseries on clouds and knew they’d sink into the sea eventually. Begonia and all. We dig until we find a bulb. A locket box. A memorabilia store. A pistil-shaped memoir. A pot of blue lip paint. An animal. A drownling. When the water ties our throats together, she watches through the glass, and we shift to shift her clouds to make her boombox play. Our breakfast table is smaller for this planet of swiped library cards, of girls chasing shark tails with buckets. The water makes an underground, and our feet dangle through the other side. Netting and empty soda bottles catch our face replicas in drops, and we shake our mugs like maracas. Shimmer eggs wane winter oranges turned to drum pulse rose milk staining our bra straps and pie crust we shake. She watches, her first time trembling, her fur twinning off the ice and the rocks.