A MAN OF MY AGE Poem by Nicolás Suescún

I travel in front of a man of my age
bearded as I am, but bent down.
His eyes are lost in emptiness,
I doubt it's his hands he's looking at.
He moves in a strange and desert territory,
his time is not my time,
it's not me he's interested in, in any case,
safe and sound, my back straight, after so much.
A moment later I watch him
burying his head in his hands,
pick his ears, read loudly cuttings
of some Miss Lonelyheart's column,
as if he were reading a speech,
and finally take out a little notebook
at which he peers page after page
and where he writes a word,
a single word or two, from time to time.
What does he write?, I ask myself
trying to understand why there is chaos
in that body which could be mine,
why it's not him who's examining me.