Yes it’s Difficult

by Millicent Borges Accardi

             from a line by Inês Fonseca Santos


And so the tirade extends like a chemical
mixture in an extruder.
It pushes and pulls back until the tail end
of the hurt is knifed off and another section
is extruded. After that, and then after that,
more after that’s, and the bulk of it is all bullshit.
We were once invincible and carefree,
able to walk the streets, ride busses and talk to each
other as close as if to kiss and kiss we did, with tongues
and teeth and then as a hello we kissed each other’s
cheeks on opposite sides, saying, “Yes I am with you”
and “We are the same.” But it was all so easy
then, and it was how we did things then,
dirty and up close and we breathed on each other
sighing air, sipping in fine water droplets
into each other’s lungs. As kids we ran over
to the Yannis family to catch chicken pox,
and leaned out the window to hug mom
when she got the mumps at 40. It was simple and sweet
and maybe how life was meant to be when we held up our
wrists, someone came to pick us up and whisper hush.


* * * * *

"Yes it's Difficult" is from Millicent Borges Accardi's collection Quarantine Highway (Flowersong Press, 2022)

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American writer has four poetry collections including Only More So (Salmon Poetry Ireland). Among her awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, CantoMundo, Fulbright, Foundation for Contemporary Arts NYC (Covid grant), Creative Capacity, Fundação Luso-Americana, and Barbara Deming Foundation, “Money for Women.” She holds degrees in writing from CSULB and USC and currently lives in the hippie-arts community of Topanga, CA where she curates Kale Soup for the Soul and co-curates the Poets & Writers sponsored Loose Lips poetry readings.