Bianca Alyssa Pérez

poetry

Bianca Alyssa Pérez (she/her/ella) is a poet & educator born and raised in South Texas. Her chapbook, Gemini Gospel, was the winner of Host Publication’s Chapbook Contest in Spring 2023. Her work is in or forthcoming from these beautiful places: Porter House Review, Infrarrealista Review, New York Quarterly, Poetry Daily, Praisesong for the People Anthology (edited by Amanda Johnston), and The Texas Observer. She currently teaches undergraduate writing at Texas State University and coordinates the TXST MFA in Creative Writing Program. She serves on the board of directors for Writers’ League of Texas and Abode Press. She is also the co-host of the horror podcast, Basement Girls, with writer Steph Grossman. Find more chisme at her website: biancaalyssaperez.com.

 

Here’s a memory

of my mother/a shovel in her hand/severing the head of a snake/trying to get into the back of the house/I watched the shovel pierce flesh & dirt & earth/not in my house, she says/not in my house/its body coiled in a corner/where my dad said he would pave with cement/but never did/so every time it rains I go out back/to the square patch of mud/& stomp my feet to squeeze the water out/the snake is lifeless/my mother looks at me/watching her/ the blood dark red at her feet/the shovel wet with it/it was poisonous she assures me/ I know now that red & yellow means death/but I had never seen my mother kill anything before/& it felt the same as that time she took a drag from my dad’s cigarette before he left for work/her cough bringing tears to her eyes/her mascara smearing at the bottom/I don’t know her/but sometimes I forget there was a time before me/when she scribbled hearts in her middle school notebook/& waited tables at Bonanza on 10th Street/before she was a mother that had to be afraid of/everything/not in my house, she says/not in my house

“ This memory of my mom is the most visceral to me. It isn’t just about violence (the act of killing a snake) and protection—it’s about really witnessing my mom for who she is and was. The snake is just the catalyst. This poem helps me preserve the shock of seeing my mom as both powerful and fragile, and realizing that her love is shaped by what she’s had to survive. ”