Selected for publication by Sara Borjas
Facing It
after Yusef Komunyakaa
in response to “La Malinche,” a portrait painted by Alfredo Ramos Martínez of the Aztec girl whose language skills led her to serve Hernán Cortés as interpreter, guide, and later, mistress—
I can almost say my name. Am almost
someone I know. They say I was sold
by my own mother. Called me traitor, sellout, prostitute
to the empire. What is a girl but an easy
sin to pin down. What could I do but work
my tongue—breeding all the language man
could want. Before I could speak, a black slit
parted my lips—so haunts, by the millions, might peruse
the inscrutable there, and find
pillage, not so much. Gold, disguised
as base metal. Self-made fool’s
china. Fool’s shiny, like polished
stone. No, flesh—I was hungry and he
fed me. Credit me some—I survived
my curse. Built crude refuge in letters
and signs
of nobility that hid
my broken worth. I never meant to
become this easy—dangled and
quick-footed, shimmying before
kings to win favor, pounding out my
portion on the backs
of the kin. All their hope
heaped on me—now coals. Now, who am I
but his
pale eyes through mine. Like a bird
of prey, I see the booby trap
of white flesh.
My brow—sturdy.
My back—strong-bridged.
Stone wisdom of woman, forgive me
for eating. For now, in the mirror
that reflects so
harshly, I am trying to erase
this name. No, this life
I chose
to lose—I own.
Michelle Phương Hồ is a poet based in New Haven, CT. Her writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Nat Brut, and Poetry, among others, and has been recognized with the 2025 Connecticut Artistic Excellence Award, the 2024 BRINK Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing, and the 2020 Frontier Poetry Industry Prize. She received her MFA in poetry from NYU.
Guest Judge: Sara Borjas is a Xicanx pocha and a Fresno poet. Her debut collection, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff (Noemi Press, 2019) received a 2020 American Book Award. Sara was named one of Poets & Writers 2019 Debut Poets and the recipient of the 2014 Blue Mesa Poetry Prize. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, CantoMundo, The Poetry Foundation, Sewanee Writers Conference, and elsewhere. Her poems have been published in AGNI: To Never Have Risked Our Lives: A Portfolio of Central American and Mexican Diaspora Writing, The Rumpus, The Gettysburg Review, Catapult, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day by The Academy of American Poets, Alta and The Offing, amongst others.
