By Sergio Ortiz
In sixty-eight you blacklisted me,
wiretapped my phone, and read
my correspondence. There were line-ups,
searches, and beatings outside bars.
If arrested, I was sure to be the news.
At the beach, you followed me into the restroom.
I knew it was a trap. I ran, my wounded face
stared in all directions. In sixty-nine
I threw pennies at your mafia blueboys and cheered:
We wear our dungarees, above our nelly knees!
But you were still a voyeur in my bedroom.
In eighty-four I learned to quilt.
You buried your mask, and black became
my favorite color. In ninety-five I started to resist
and question why your doll houses had concentric
picket fences. In two thousand-nine I took
my father’s sculpture and hammered on its face
until its eyebrows were as thin as mine
and I began to look a little like the rest.
It’s time for me to join and follow the parade.
Sergio Ortiz grew up in Chicago, studied English Literature at Inter-American University. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Yellow Medicine, The Battered Suitcase, Salt River Review, and dozens of other journals.