“The old queen / would leave the hive whenever she wanted to // without being followed by a swarm”

We move into the “Hypocenter” in this trio of poems.

“I hunger. I eat. I sleep.

I hunger. I eat. I sleep.”

Be ready to be entranced.

“filling Lowe's bins with soil and zucchini and no blooming brings my painted poogle back from the pound…”

Three is the lucky number of our hearts this V Day. Here’s Monique Quintana’s “Crow Triptych” in three lockets.

“Desire is no foreign thing to immigrants

or queers.”

“…Oh if you insist Mrs. Funnynose
I will sit to tea and mudcakes
with you, soaked to the drawers
in the warm shallows
of this pink, cloved,
round-bellied afternoon.”

“My best friend said the only way she’d find God
is if she got locked up in prison, & she’d pick
Jesus over the rest because he has the most
subscribers.”

“What I knew, and what my old instructor had intuited, was that I needed a change of environment to make progress. You cannot move forward in the writing if you remain still in the world, my professor had written in his email.“

“let’s begin with his disappointment he carries it

onto the platform with my suitcase black strap biting…”