Frank Báez

Before going to the hospital, I accompanied my father
for a haircut, and the barber with tattooed arms,
polished the seat with a rag as if it were a throne
and my father with his beard and glasses hesitated 
  before sitting
because he loathed all privileges
and if he frequented that barbershop where the decibels
of reggaeton and salsa music
shattered the eardrums of the clientele
it was because he felt at home
and the barber’s clippers were a bird
fluttering over my father’s head
and it intoned a song
which was imperceptible to mortals.

It was a song about death
and that was the last haircut my father would have
and the barber did not know that,
nor did I know that,
no one knew.

Outside the sun was shining,
Friday was approaching,
and the other barbers sheared the heads
of their clients
with their little machines.

At times I have thought of going to the barbershop
to tell the barber with tattooed arms
that my father has died.
Or perhaps not tell him a thing,
just sit down so he can cut my hair
with those clippers that fluttered like a bird
over my father’s head.
Then I would know the significance
of the lugubrious song the clippers intoned,
I would understand and it would be, as always,
too late.

I call Miguel on the phone and ask him
if he thinks I would be better off as a DJ or as a poet
and Miguel answers as a Poet.
My girlfriend also says Poet.
My girlfriend’s brother says Poet
and the chick I met when she was in line
behind me at the movies says DJ.

Girls tend to see me more as a DJ
while the women shopping at supermarkets
say that I should stick with the poems.

My mother says Poet.
The plumber says Poet.
The five poets I know all say
I’d be better off as a DJ.
My sister abstained from voting.

I went to see DJ Tiësto
and a gringa grabbed my hands
and said that DJs are creatures of God.

They’re angels, she said and while she was talking
I imagined all the DJs with their turntables
flying around God like mosquitoes
and God shooing them away
with his hand.

But the question is whether the poets and the DJs
can be reconciled;
if they can be One,
if it’s possible to write poems with one hand
and with the other scratch records,
if it’s possible to be half-poet, half-DJ,
to be a poet above the waist
and below the waist a DJ
or vice versa
or maybe, during a full moon, a poet
could transform into a DJ
or maybe I’m complicating everything
and the fact is every DJ wants to be a poet
and every poet wants to be a DJ.

There’s a legend in which a DJ and a poet
fall into a well.

They shout and shout until
a man appears and throws down
a rope. The DJ climbs up first but when
they throw the rope back to the poet he screams, 
Leave me down here,
and the man and the DJ do so. They wait in silence
for a little while, and then they leave.

I tell you, the other day I met
the Mediterranean and it was a bit
like spotting a washed-out actor.

I walked along the Oceanside hearing
waves which sounded like
the cough of an asthmatic Joe Pesci.

More than some forgotten actor
the sea reminded one of the mummies
on display in the museum of Cairo.

Nothing like you, Caribbean Sea…
this afternoon you possess so much strength
it seems you’re fresh from the gym.

I don’t know if I prefer
when you stretch out tame and basking
like a lion on the savanna.

Or when you become enraged and roar
and try sodomizing the coast
just like Marlon Brando’s exploits

in Last Tango in Paris.
Pelicans and seagulls drip
from your fingers when

you try to trap them, and it’s as if
you would like to leave your lair,
but your chains hold you

with such strength you’re
left ranting and wailing.
Tell me the truth. Don’t the cruise ships

filled with the elderly, and the trash
we toss disturb you?
We’ve poisoned, contaminated you.

Last year your coasts were slimed
with such algae it seemed
some tourist on our beaches

had infected you with syphilis.
I told myself: What a mess.
Then asked if this were the end.

But instead of unleashing a tsunami
to retaliate against our cities
and wipe off Miami from the map,

you returned to grazing your flock of waves
that bleated in peace and harmony
far and wide along the coast.

What else can I tell you? You’re the sea
of my boyhood. I have spent my life
deciphering your words.

We have both grown old, but
despite the passing of time
I continue returning to this reef

to converse with you, and with
the same innocence as when
I was a boy and wandered

your beaches, picked up a conch,
and set it against my ear when you
spoke to me for the first time.