Sara Borjas

cantfindit

SARA BORJAS is a Xicanx pocha, is from the americas before it was stolen and its people were colonized, and is a Fresno poet. Her debut collection of poetry, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff was published by Noemi Press in 2019 and won a 2020 American Book Award. Sara was named one of Poets & Writers 2019 Debut Poets, is a 2017 CantoMundo Fellow, and the recipient of the 2014 Blue Mesa Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in Ploughshares, The Rumpus, Poem-a-Day by The Academy of American Poets, Alta and The Offing, amongst others. She teaches innovative undergraduates at UC Riverside, believes that all Black lives matter and will resist white supremacy until Black liberation is realized, lives in Los Angeles, and stays rooted in Fresno. She digs oldiez, outer space, aromatics, and tiny prints is about decentering whiteness in literature, creative writing, and daily life. Source

Mexcian Bingo (Edited)

My family won't let me play unless I call the cards in Spanish: la botella, el apache, el cantarito.  We cover our cards with beans we can barely see against our skin, plop down tough little hearts of dirt that might split in our hands.  We become clichés.  My cousin Ruby strolls through the house in a black tank top, asking if anyone wants a tattoo in Old English.   My tia asks me to order the package for Daniel.  Use Gol·en State Care, Mija, I hear· from Rachel that they were the best.  I order ten Top Ramens and a pair of Nike Cortez for my cousin who lives in a box at Wasco.  I can't help but think he's built it himself.  We say our own names for the people on the cards.  La chalupa is the girl in the boat; el negro is my cousin's Oaxacan boyfriend Sleepy; el soldado is my brother in Iraq; el borracho is my Tio Gilbert splayed on the couch; el corazón is my sister, the only reason my father does not leave; and el Diablo, my mother says that's me.  No matter how many chances I get to correct, no matter how much my tia glares, I cannot call the cards by their rightful names if they don't have one.  We are both el apache and la dama, the lost and the found.  I have twice inherited one language and lost my atlas to the fifth dimension of Chicanismo.  The words we never asked for make us illegible.  Nights like this, I drink to remember the friar forcing my r's with curled leather, the quiet god making my a's a little dirtier.  I reclaim mutilation, roll it like a velvet red carpet to the dining table, play the appropriator, play the priest but not the pocha, not here, just the halves of myself I never wanted to be.  I know I'll be ashamed of it tomorrow.  That's why I'm praying with my hands in my coat.  That's why I throw the beans away every time.

Published:

2019

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2022

Themes:

Bilingual

Family

Immigration

Intersectionality & Culture

Poetic Form

Literary Devices:

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds that takes place in two or more words in proximity to each other within a line; usually refers to the repetition of internal vowel sounds in words that do not end the same.

Dialogue

conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie

Essay/Prose

written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure

Metaphor

a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”