Millicent Borges Accardi | Nothing Sentimental

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American writer, is the author of four poetry books, including Only More So (Salmon). Her writing awards are CantoMundo, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Fulbright, California Arts Council. She serves as a mentor in the AWP Writer 2 Writer and Adroit summer writing programs and lives in the hippie canyon community of Topanga CA.

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September 3, 2025

Millicent Borges Accardi

Nothing Sentimental

No slow boat to China on a 50th wedding anniversary. No Sinatra post Ava Gardner. No feeling of any kind. No tree that was planted in the yard by someone’s wife who passed away, and still the tree grows big. No cries of Mama by Connie Francis, plaintively searching for her lost Italian Mother, or a Portuguese child crying out for a mother’s nipple. No Bésame Mucho. No seasons in the sun, no going back to Sorrento to find a family home. No saudade. No Funny Valentine, no tears you cannot hold back with sheer control. I remember a song that used to get me: A fado song, and, love, never having to apologize. There’s no one in the bar, so set the drinks on the counter and don’t ruminate over the seasons, the lost ocean or someone who got away despite what you did.

I had traveled cross country to my husband’s MFA in visual arts graduation ceremony in Vermont, and my mother was in the final stages of cancer. It was my parents’ last wedding anniversary, and I was thinking of my parents dancing to Peggy Lee, and all of the lyrics we used to cry over when I was growing up. We were non-sentimental family, (NO emoting) except when it came to music, heart -crushing songs that my dad crooned and repeated again and again, throwing his head back to howl as if he were in front of a Big Band. The music we wept over and took to heart, as a way of connecting and grieving in an acceptable way, as a family.