Dimitri Reyes
The barber peaced
me up. I asked him
for Aventura, he said
this place serviced
history, no adventure
without cleansing.
We talked sports and
more music and I
wondered if he should
fade my medula into
a one, two, or three.
Cutting me close
enough to call my
crown Brooklyn. I’m
not a Puerto Rican
from Brooklyn, but
sitting in the same chair
gets me closer every
week. I see a new re-
flection. Between the
framed rooster and flag,
another framed pair of
boxing gloves. An-
other man’s hands
framed on the wall
next to Jesus; his
hands: the same
pinned icon to
gather the beads on
my neck. Nailed to
this chair my hair
is a simple sacrifice.
To grant another
man’s hands
permission to feel
is a straight razor
to my temple.
Resisting a
resistance for
the sake of beauty.
The madness crafted
in the beatitude of a
shape-up to match
a trimmed brow.
For $12 a week,
I can watch my
hair revive itself,
unruly. In three
days I will covet
next friday, to be
born again, fresh
to death. To watch
heavy clippers in
a hand and feel
them quake at
my crown. To
almost feel the
earth tremble
at our feet.
Return to Fall Issue Volume 11.1
Dimitri Reyes is a Puerto-Vegan poet, educator, organizer, and YouTuber from Newark, New Jersey. He is the recipient of SLICE Magazine’s 2017 Bridging the Gap Award for Emerging Poets, and a finalist for the 2017 Arcturus Poetry Prize by the Chicago Review of Books. He has organized large-scale poetry events such as #PoetsforPuertoRicoNewark. Dimitri has read at venues such as The Dodge Poetry Festival, Split This Rock, Busboys and Poets, and the American Poetry Museum. His work is published or forthcoming in Vinyl, Kweli, Entropy, Cosmonauts, Obsidian, Acentos, and others. He’s also the Marketing and Communications Director at CavanKerry Press. You can find him servicing the poetry community at: http://www.youtube.com/c/dimitrireyespoet