04-11-2023
Vickie Vértiz
THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT I CAN'T TALK ABOUT
We must have already been naked, looked out at the gold
Hills and said, We need to kiss next to all of that
Nos fuimos afuerita on the yellow grass
It was warm. Hacía sol. Maybe you convinced me
Or I, you. Nos pegó no sé que
But what if someone sees us, the eternal
Question that keeps me from myself. But everyone already knows
So we opened the French doors, crawled carefully out
Covered the floor with someone else’s blanket
Your hair, too, was long and brown
And your breath was sweet water so I kissed you
The hawks above unimpressed
With our throbbing, but they could see I loved you
And your breasts, well, I knew they were not for me
Forever, and because I knew what you liked, I did it, just
More slowly because we were outside on a field trip
And because I was hungry I ate and ate
All I do is take, take, take, you said
So I took and took and took you
Rode and rode and rode you
(Maybe I was not doing anything new)
]And I surprised myself. I pleaded: bend,
flip, rearrange me
And I loved it like that. Like that sun on us—a dying
star, everywhere at once
DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
After the photograph Candy Cigarette by Sally Mann and the protest-performance organized by Cherríe Moraga and Celia Herrera Rodriguez with the nonprofit Al Otro Lado at the Otay Mesa Detention Center
I always do They sell candy crack pipes at the liquor store—where have you been?
I used to be safe and sage
among the wolves Now this cage is too small
And I move to live So when I dream, I necklace storied playgrounds
Under a pebble roll of clouds I am a doe like a doe is a buck Horns sprout
through my skull I open one door slide open another, then
another and it’s just empty warehouses Piled high with Mylar blankets
We’re not the only ones running a marathon
And these mornings The sky is a blue that hurts A rectangle sky
from a balcony I can’t see over I see through it We’ve been falling
from that sky forever These mornings, when I leap Women in
white drum and weep I leap and evening flies
IT IS WINTER AND YOU'RE NO BUNNY SLOPE
I planted a Japanese maple in Oakland
once It’s the only part of that house that still belongs to me
Is that smoke or are you just happy?
Peppermint stripes become you and
Alpine forests grow over at the right
altitude. They are not called pine trees here
Perhaps they are pinos
This looking is a gift
It was the beginning of summer when you jumped
from the couch to the mountains, from the ocean sand to volley up
to the sun, a striped ball
Then a sailboat slowly tipped to one side
without you noticing
This is an advertisement for vacations
and bathing suits that go down past your thighs
Very proper, very lady
Everything you have to say can be said sideways
and backwards. Just be careful
Remember the pale powder sky and that I
will be here next season
And where, my dear, will you be? Still mad because I got cuter shoes
Me, I’m on this black lacquered floor, safely tucked into a pocket
There is a net between us and time. Our countries are white lines traced
across our outfits, our passports
I am waiting for someone to tell me to get up
To stop, to go down the stairs and into another silent room
Ah, there she is. She walked over to the balcony
and glanced at me. A warning
So I get up
And notice there are people that you will meet
once you arrive at the ski lodge
They wear yellow and blue
Power pink and purple pants
The trees are alpines but they are cerulean not ______
My seeing was off (this time)
Somewhere the Ainu are not skiing
From here it is impossible to see that they exist
It is just you and I and hidden hot springs. Hidden people
Who you sacrificed for a black clean floor
-from Auto/Body (Notre Dame University Press), selected by Spring 2023 Guest Editor, Gerard Robledo
The oldest child of an immigrant Mexican family, Vickie Vértiz was born and raised in Bell Gardens, a city in southeast Los Angeles County. With over 25 years of experience in social justice, writing, and education, Vértiz is an alumna of the Woodrow Wilson and Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowships.
Her writing is featured in the New York Times Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Huizache, Nepantla, the Los Angeles Review of Books, KCET Departures and Artbound, and the anthologies: Open the Door ( McSweeney’s and the Poetry Foundation), and The Coiled Serpent ( Tia Chucha Press), among many others.
Vértiz’s first full collection of poetry, Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut, published in the Camino del Sol Series at The University of Arizona Press, won a 2018 PEN America literary prize. She has been a resident or fellow at Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, Macondo, CantoMundo, VONA, Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the Community of Writers. Her work was chosen in 2016 by Natalie Diaz for the University of Arizona Poetry Center Summer Residency Program.
Vickie has taught creative writing and given craft talks since 2008 at the Claremont Graduate University, 826 Valencia, the Center Theater Group, and her alma maters, Williams College, Bell Gardens High School, and UC-Riverside, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2015. Vickie also holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from UT-Austin.
Vickie is a proud member of Colectivo Miresa, a feminist cooperative speaker’s bureau. Her first poetry collection, Swallows, is available from Finishing Line Press. She teaches creative writing, writing for Chicanx Studies, writing for Gender Studies, summer bridge writing for EOP students, and Composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
All work on this website is protected under the “Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives” license. View at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
