2002 Graduate Poetry Winner
Kevin
Gonzales
Julio, El
Barbero
He fled Cuba in the Sixties to neighbor isle
Puerto Rico and became an estadista.
You
can’t blame him, argued my father,
a statehooder himself, against my claim:
He
should shut up, support the cause
or
leave. La estadidad is not an option.
The cause meant independence. I was fifteen,
disciplined by my heart’s blind politics.
I bore the same style since six, when
a phonebook hoisted my face onto the mirror,
a few inches off Julio’s effort.
Every month he asked me what I wanted
and I
said the same thing,
my father next in turn for the chair
that had cradled him for thirty years.
At nine, I had memorized his story
of exile, the whisper of scissors
cutting air as he paced around me.
On Havana nights, he was a tenor.
Barber by day. Deacon on weekends.
It was
hard, but we went on...
his nostalgia-thick breath collapsing
gradually into ruin. At thirteen,
I derailed our dialogue to baseball
but the off-season proved a problem.
He likes the Yankees, that’s no surprise.
In Puerto Rico he is choir director
of his church. Not the same thing
as a deacon or a tenor, he implies
in a blank stare towards the mirror.
I am older now, two phonebooks taller
than Julio, still an independentista
but understanding of the cause of others.
I am sorry for him, a life confined
to scissors whispers and remembrance.
He deserves to talk and I owe to listen,
to sit still as when his razor soothes me.
I should root for the Yankees so he can win one.
I lean back on the chair, familiar haven.
He speaks of mid-century hurricanes
striking Cuba. Shreds of hair slump
toward the ground, dispelled memories.
Kevin
Gonzáles, winner of the 2002 Touchstone
Graduate Contest for Poetry, is a student at Carnegie-Mellon University in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
All rights reserved. Copyright KSU Touchstone 2003
Last updated April 30, 2003