Left with Loose Sentences
         from a line by Margarida Ferra

by Millicent Borges Accardi


The day has a hard shadow
he said, where the sun cuts
behind a solid object like
a resolution, or
a song the lady
reads aloud, like a story
about failure,
or a year’s
loss into oblivion that
no one planned for,
the inability to get anything
done. Being lost without
redemption.
No joy, but solitude
found in penalties,
lost imaginings
and tasks, lost amid,
behind,
for what remains unfinished.
This day’s long life, mapped
between reality
and denseness,
as bottomless as a break
in the dark house up inside my heart.


* * * * *

"Left with Loose Sentences" 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.