Diego Báez ​
​

Folk Music
 
Used to be all Christian rock and Paraguayan
accordion, harp, and birdsong on the boombox.
An uncle who imitates chaco chachalaca and toco
toucan on the AM station. Now tío DJ talks
 
across CDs burnt and trafficked through customs.
I write about the only other Paraguayan poet I know,
a woman who performs whiteness as well as I do. Who
dehyphenates, one last name for another. Although
 
you could say the same about my rap name from back in the day at U-
High in Normal, Illinois. “The 101.” Neither downstate high-
way nor lucky number of mine. Nothing special. El-
elementary. Folklórico. By Diego Bá-
 
ez. Simple. Straightforward. This should be the story
of an oral history so rich it unfurls at ease. But truth is loose
ends and a heart out of tune. The harp beside my father’s fireplace.
It hardly gets any use.

Ascension / Asunción
 
I wanted to compose a poem about ascension y Asunción,
but “Asunción” does not mean “ascension.” Instead,
it’s closer to “Assumption,” as in the Virgin
Mary’s assumption into heaven, which does then, in the end, mean more or less, an ascension.
 
I find poetry’s like that a lot, where a thing’s not a thing,
but it basically is, except different enough that it’s not.
Like when I say I can’t remember Asunción, it’s not
because I’ve never been but because it’s not where I’m from.
 
I’m from a Paraguayan cane farm in a village outside a small town,
or at least my dad is. I’m from a suburb downstate
except there’s no actual city anywhere near it to speak of.
My child’s the only one who can claim an urban genesis,
 
even though she didn’t inherit a thing
from my Mom’s side, like the name “John,”
which has disappeared from the family almost overnight:
give it a generation, and everyone’s named Iris or Fergus or Isla.
 
Although I suppose the feast day of my own birth,
that of Juan Diego, coincides nicely with the story
del nacimiento de mi mismo. For my mom’s sake,
the first Catholic saint indigenous, so-called, to the Americas.
 
But at least then I can say, “Juan,” and she can hear “song.”
And when my child speaks Guarani it’s not hella loud
but a whisper at dinner, when she calls her meal “haku,”
or at night, when she echoes back: “rohiwho.”
 
Of course I remember Asunción:
My dad folding cash to slip to waitstaff at a restaurant.
My dad buying a newspaper not to read it,
but because the paperboy’s family needs it.
 
Papi tipping the shoeshine boy at the bus depot.
              The way a father’s pride
glistens with the dignity of an immigrant
who finds their way in the world.
 
Or a child, like mine, who already navigates kinder-
garten in public schools so different to those of my youth.
What can I do?               Keep her grounded, lift her up.
Keep her grounded.                                                            Lift her up.
--
Diego Báez is a writer, educator, and abolitionist. He is the author of Yaguareté White, a finalist for a Chicago Review of Books Award and winner of the Chicago Reader’s Best New Poetry Collection for 2024. His poems and book reviews have previously appeared online and in print. He lives in Chicago and teaches at the City Colleges.