"ditch locket" by Monique Quintana

Crow abandoned the snow for another time, for leaves growing and horizontal. He walked until he came to a chinampa floating in the sunlight. When he opened his mouth to greet the soil, the snow caught up with him and froze the lake beds, and when Crow stood over the ice, he did not recognize his reflection.

Monique Quintana is a Xicana from Fresno, CA, and is the author of Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019). Her work has been published in Pank, Wildness, Lost Balloon, Okay Donkey, and The Acentos Review, among others. Her work has also been supported by Yaddo, The Sundress Academy for the Arts, The Community of Writers, and The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. She was the inaugural winner of Amplify's Writer of Color Fellowship and is a contributing editor at Luna Luna Magazine, where she writes book reviews, artist interviews, and personal essays. Connect; moniquequintana.com and @quintanagothic on Instagram and Twitter.