Sara Borjas

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

Traces of My Father

There isn’t one photo of my dad

in this house. In the garden, he builds

a trellis for purple perennials and leaves

a sifter heavy with dirt. He’ll tell you

how he plants his cherry tomatoes once

a year if you ask him about his life. He’ll

tell you that a father’s duty is provision

if you ask him why. Nothing he says to me,

lasts. My mother yells at him

for tracking dirt into our house.

Men give love in provisional ways.

My grandpa, a butcher, only carved time

for throwing footballs in the street.

My dad, a math teacher, taught me

efficiency through division

problems in our living room.

The tomatoes die each fall.

I leave leftovers for my dad

in the microwave. I put his pajamas back

in his armoire. I watch the tomato skin wilt

on the vines. I sit on my knees and scrub

the carpet for hours, the tracks so deep.

I can’t tell if they are coming out.

Published:

None

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Family

Memory & The Past