Bitter Sweet Memory

Juan Manuel Pérez

June 13, 2021

Somewhere between 1969 and 1970

first sensed memory

my dear father, now deceased 

mother, also dead

a large man today

so was my brown-skinned father

once fit in his arms

a baby bottle

a flash of something poured in

a high-pitched question 

a soft, bitter taste

salty but tolerable 

so pacifying 

my father’s wide smile

helping me to fall asleep

distant murmuring 

it did take some years

understanding what happened

from a forced recant

father shared his beer

leaving both of us at peace

mom was not happy

Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of indigenous descent and the 2019-2020 Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas, is the author of several books of poetry including two new books, SPACE IN PIECES (2020) and SCREW THE WALL! AND OTHER BROWN PEOPLE POEMS (2020).