In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Wearing Her Wrangler Jeans and Payless Penny Loafers, and: My Grandfather Would Say
  • Yaccaira Salvatierra (bio)

Wearing Her Wrangler Jeans and Payless Penny Loafers

God is a Mexican womandriving across the San Diego-Tijuana borderin a lightly dented and dusted1980s sky blue Dodge Ram Van—a hand-me-down gift from a coupleshe nannied for in San Marino, Californiathat still think of her as the most loving caregiverwith that I-wish-she-would-have-stayed nostalgia,but she now has her ownten and eleven-year-old children,Miguelito and Gabriela, who sitin the back seat with a six-year-old boyfrom Hidalgo, Mexico,his small head resting on Miguelito’s lappretending to be asleepwhen Gabriela speaksin her accented English, answershow old she is, where she lives,what school she goes to, favorite subject,who the lady driving is—my mom,the boy sleeping—my little brother,and like thatthe patrol agent makes a hand gesturefor them to pass through the gatewhere they will continue drivingto the boy’s parents waiting in Pomona. [End Page 187]

My Grandfather Would Say

“After all, we all die, and God will be waiting for you;He won’t be looking at the holes on the bottoms of your shoesor the duct tape you cover them with when it rains.

He won’t compare your small stature—nourished on blocksof government cheese and powdered milk—to others because

somehow it all disappears: shoes, cheese and milk, the duct tape.Only the tools that belonged to you will leave with you:the chisel and mallet of your heart, the ink coming off the page.

He will ask you to drop your shawl just like Juan Diego did,so the roses of your life, evidence that you loved, appear.”

The day my grandfather died, his strong arms sankinto the sides of his chest, tired, relieved; and his legsthat once walked down rows of California orchards, collapsed.

That night, I dreamed his soul struggled as it inched its way outof his skin until his body looked like a pile of dirty work clothes.

I saw him ascend towards the dark dome of the sky,pass through one of the small openings I knew as a star,and stand at the top of a desert mountain. Then, he untied

a white burlap sack from around his neck and letoranges, strawberries, and grapes fall to the ground. [End Page 188]

Yaccaira Salvatierra
Mexican/Peruvian American
Yaccaira Salvatierra

Salvatierra, Yaccaira is Mexican/Peruvian-American, and raised in California. She has performed with various artistic groups in the Bay Area, participating with Afro-Peruvian troupes as a dancer and poet. She has played the cajón—Peruvian percussion—in an all women’s cajón ensemble, but now enjoys finding the music and dance in words inspired by people’s stories and a city’s movement. Her poetry has appeared in the online journal The Acentos Review, and is forthcoming in HUIZACHE. She is a VONA (Voices of Our Nation) alumna and is currently working on an M.F.A. in Poetry at San José State University.

...

pdf

Share