POETRY

Sara Borjas is a Xicanx pocha, a Fresno poet, and the author of Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff (Noemi Press, 2019). She teaches at UC Riverside, lives in Los Angeles, and stays rooted in Fresno.

To the Woman Who Said She Could Hear My Accent

We were. I didn’t tell you this. I wish I would have mentioned how I heard your halfness, which is a fullness, your all-in all-out mega Boricua, your immaculate jump shot capability to name things by what they are not, how your father makes it into every description you give me of yourself: You said, you’ve never come into a relationship as friends first. I said, I’ve only loved people who are my friends. Dear woman who said you heard my accent even with all these Los Angeles cars stumbling by even with all the disclaimers we have both made you have listened to my body with your body and I have never been so true. Friends hear what you need from yourself when you talk. I hear longing from every direction with you. A woman said she heard my accent but I think she meant I hear you talking to remind yourself who you are and she listened and she said ok.