beer this verb to be with an aftertaste
            bitterness my father said
            you gotta learn how to love
            same as coffee no one likes
            at first he thus expounded
I nodded never telling that Nonô

who was Lebanese in all ways that mattered
            had been making us café
            for years I can still smell
            Grammy’s chocolate-coffee cake
            by which I mean not the shape
of said cake but its contents soaked into

Brazilian coffee & cocoa equal parts
            I still hate beer it makes me
            think too much of everything
            I don’t miss about Brazil
            the aftertaste every time
I answer where’s your accent from & bubbles

from some foam from some ocean I still miss
            rush up crushing leave me flat
            an unwanted afteraccent
            whereas coffee accelerating
            & waning thru my veins
has made me feel the tides within the tides




____

Carlos A. Pittella is a Latinx poet, an accumulator of accents, a pile of expired passports. Having lived in Brazil, Portugal, & the US, he now studies creative writing at Concordia University, Canada. His poems have appeared in Tint, Feral, & the VS Podcast. Tweet hi @metaferal