He will be a beggar—no, a barber! And he will polish your nails 
each time you lay down your pen, though hair is his only métier. 

And he will practice the close measure of each thin line, which 
grows from your head, cropping them all to their proper lengths.

He will think you’re a genius, even though he’s illiterate,
for he will believe, as only he can, how the true sound of song, 

which wells up in his soul, is matched only by your words.
And you will laugh at him for years for this simple act of faith.

But when you die, he will still shave you, dress you in your blue 
serge suit, the one you bought for this occasion, when money 

was of no consequence. And he will ask alms for your burial, 
because you died penniless, finally making him the beggar 

you always thought he was. Still, he will gain the pennies 
necessary to cover your eyes. And he will cross your hands 

over the hollow place, where once your heart was, but now, 
bequeathed to someone else, beats inside another’s body, 

whose brother is also a barber. And in this odd new 
migration of things, where the little pieces of yourself 

are at last free from each other, you will find your heart 
cannot speak to the new body it inhabits. It cannot tell 

the stranger it lives in to love his brother 
as you have never done.