Spoon Locket

By Monique Quintana

Crow picks up his sister's blue bones, which turn to dust from the pyre, and drops them in the metal pail. He speaks his intentions. The final place. A carved box spray painted in gold. The fledging protests were enough for him to hear her through the wind. She doesn't want to be inside so small a thing. Throw me in the river, she says, so that the fish will think they have entered rain for the first time.

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Monique Quintana is a Xicana from Fresno, CA, and the author of Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019). Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Wildness, Lost Balloon, The Acentos Review, and other publications. She has been supported by Yaddo, the Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and the Community of Writers. You can find her at moniquequintana.com. Instagram and Twitter.