WEBVTT

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No more cold nights sleeping
out on the tattered sheet.

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This is another poem from Chile
called "Cuidadores de Autos"

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which means "caretakers of
cars," and it describes them.

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There's the Spanish word propina
in here, which means "tip."

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You know, like
you give a waiter.

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Propina.

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It seems like the world's
most useless profession

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to guard and protect the
already safe and secure,

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to guide you out of
your parking place

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as if this were your first
time behind the wheel,

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as if without their
help you would

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smash into one car, then
another, or collapse

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and weep uncontrollably.

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That without them to put
your peso in the meter,

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you would desperately fumble,
accidentally fling it down

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the grating of a sewer.

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There must be 1,000 of these
men on the streets of Santiago,

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where their symbols of
office, a dirty orange rag

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and a gray cap.

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I even know one man who
was training his son

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in the profession,
a boy of about eight

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with a smaller cap
and smaller rag.

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The father complains how
people ignore him, force

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him to chase them all
the way to the stoplight

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for his propina, which is why
he employs this little boy, who

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was quick on his feet
and likes to run.

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But I remember one
night when we had

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dinner at a restaurant
near the market we had not

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argued that day.

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You are happy, and your
eyes crinkled at the corners

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in a way that makes you
even more beautiful.

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When we left the
restaurant, yours

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was the only car
still on the block,

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and nearby waited one of these
men, these caretakers of cars.

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But older than most, with a gray
cap that looked like something

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had been chewing it.

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He followed us to the car
and with great ceremony

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directed you away from the curb
with this little orange rag,

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peered intently into the
dark for any trucks that

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might be traveling fast
with their lights off.

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The world was safe,
and the innocent

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slept soundly in their beds.

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You thanked him,
gave him 10 pesos,

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and he called you his
little daughter, which

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pleased and embarrassed you.

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The moon was full that
night, but the moon here

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is not the Northern moon.

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The face is another face.

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The right eye which I have seen
all my life is now the mouth,

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and the mouth of the
North is now the left eye.

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A face with a high forehead.

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No chin to speak of.

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A leering, stupid sort of
face, which presumes to know

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but knows nothing.

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As you slept, I studied
the freckles on your back

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until they seemed
part of a map--

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towns with no
roads between them.

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Here everything feels reversed.

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The fig tree in the backyard
was heavy with figs,

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and I kept hearing them fall.

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First, the brief riffle as one
dropped through the leaves,

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then a plop like a
wet wadded-up sock

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as it hit the tiles
of the patio, where

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it would harden and spoil.

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You lay dreaming of
houses, solar houses,

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and earthquake-proof houses,
a house on the ocean,

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on a hill above the beach.

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A profusion of flowers and light
flickering on the white walls,

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filling the rooms like water.

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And where was I?

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Sometimes, I hear sirens during
curfew, the high squealing

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sirens of the motorcycles,
and that night there

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were gunshots and
the sound of running.

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A German newspaper claims
that last month 21 houses

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were raided in Santiago.

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442 political arrests.

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We know nothing of it.

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Later that night, a Jeep
slammed on its brakes.

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There was shouting, the sound
of someone being beaten.

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We hurried outside.

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A young man lay in the grass,
moaning and holding his head.

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He said he had been at a party.

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There had been a girl who wore
new expensive-looking yellow

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boots and pleaded with us
not to call the police.

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Soon we went back to bed.

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Who will protect us
from our protectors?

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As I lay beside you, I listened
to the sound of a man's boots

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slowly walking down the
street, becoming fainter,

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until at last they were
lost and grew confused

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with the pounding of my heart.

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