"Small Hours of the Night" (A Poem)

Akin to Christina Rossetti’s “Remember,” Roque Dalton’s poem “Small Hours of the Night” discusses the mourning process, asking the grieving not to speak his name but happier words, like flower or bee. A renowned revolutionary, Dalton fought against the military regime in El Salvador, escaping prison when an earthquake destroyed the outer wall of his jail cell and undergoing plastic surgery in the 1970s to prevent himself from being identified.[1]

When you know I’m dead don’t say my name
because then death and peace would have to wait.

Your voice, the bell of your five senses, would form
the thin beam of light my mist would be looking for.

When you know I’m dead, say other words.
Say flower, bee, teardrop, bread, storm.

Don’t let your lips find my eleven letters.
I’m sleepy, I’ve loved, I’ve earned silence.

Don’t say my name when you know I’m dead:
I would come out of the dark ground for your voice.

Don’t say my name, don’t say my name.
When you know I’m dead don’t say my name.[2]

Works Referenced

Brown, Janice, Beverly Ann Cin, Rosa Fonseca, Kay Licona, William Ray, and Jacqueline Jones Royster. Hispanic American Literature. Columbus, OH: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Dalton, Roque. “Small Hours of the Night.” Small Hours of the Night: Selected Poems of Roque Dalton. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1996. 47.
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[1] Brown, Cin, Fonseca, Licona, Ray, and Royster, 250
[2] Dalton, 47.