Madrugada

Madrugada


No word for it in English, that time
between midnight and dawn. Most of us
are asleep by then, outrunning leopards
on blue lawns, or avenging our daily lives.
But in South America many are awake.
I see them dancing in the madrugada
all madrugada long. Even those working

quietly in their rooms at 3 A.M.—
it pleases me to think—are doing so
in the madrugada. I love how life nags
and language responds.
But if I were to fly to Caracas or Lima
to live the word and to say it out loud,
no doubt it would start to rhyme

with grunts from bar fights
and the muffled cries of women
forced into cars, and in dim-lit rooms
the silence of money sliding
into someone’s hand. Madrugada,
I might say then, without pleasure,
its meaning so consonant with the world.


Stephen Dunn

Posted over on Beatrice