Jacques Dubois

English 123

Lisa Orta

The last shards of John's life: an essay on the poem "5.4AM" by Gil Cuadros

The poem "5. 4AM" by Gil Cuadros is the fifth poem out of six poems in The Quilt

Series, found in the book of poetry City of God. This poem was written in the late 1980's, when

Cuadros' lover John died due to complications from AIDS. When Cuadros wrote the poem, he

too was infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Cuadros). Since the 1980's, the virus

HIV-1 is responsible for over 25 million deaths world wide, and is considered a pandemic (Sharp

and Hahn). The AIDS Memorial Quilt project was started to commemmorate people who died of

AIDS to remember their names and the lives that they lived (Lateef). Cuadros named the poems

he wrote The Quilt Series to commemmorate John and others who died due to AIDS.

The name of the poem "5. 4AM" signifies the fifth poem in a series of six poems and

4:00 am is the time when the narrator of the poem understands that John has died and begins to

howl. His lover John dies at five minutes to four o'clock in the morning and the nurse notifies

him just before four in the morning that John has passed away.

"5. 4AM" Is an important poem in The Quilt Series because it marks the first moment

that the poem narrator finds out that his lover John has died. It is a dramatic and heart-wrenching

poem, with memories of the narrator and John's relationship together. It seems, from the poem,

that they were in a relationship for at least five years because Cuadros includes the sentence:

"Five smooth years/enough to make my parent's silver marriage/feel wooden." These words talk

of a smooth relationship, full of love and loyalty. The sentence evokes a feeling that the
relationship was so strong and deep that although his parents were married for 25 years, the five

years that the narrator and John were together were much more meaningful than his parents'

marriage.

The following lines stood out to me in the poem:

I was surprised by how cold I was,

gathered all the things I needed

a comb, a hankerchief,

the red sweater, the one he loves,

the one he bought me for my birthday.

The narrator starts these lines by mentioning that he feels cold. Cuadros uses hot and cold as

symbols in his poetry as well as to give the reader a sensory feeling of touching cold or heat. In

this poem, he is surprised by how cold he is, and these words could imply that he is surprised

that he is not falling apart and crying now that the nurse has told him that John's death is

imminent. Deep down in himself, the narrator of the poem has been trying to accept John's death

for weeks. Always, a part of him has been holding onto the hope that John would get better. The

cold that the narrator feels may also be a symbol of loneliness. The cold is symbolic of being

apart from his lover or losing his lover. The cold is also related to death because a dead body is

cold and lifeless.

The narrator is trying to gather items that he will need at the hospital at John's death: a

comb, hankerchief and red sweater to keep him warm. The items that the narrator is gathering are

important symbols in the poem. He is bringing the comb either to comb his own hair so that he is
presentable at the hospital or to comb John's hair in his final moments and after death. The comb

may symbolize control and order, of putting things into place. The poem narrator is bringing his

hankercheif because he knows he will have tears and mucus running down his face when John

dies. He may want the hankercheif to tie around John's neck or to dab John's face, or even

perhaps to tie around John's face so that his jaw doesn't hang loosely once he has died. The

hankercheif provides a way to cover himself and hide, such as hiding his face in the hankerchief

while he is crying. The hankerchief is a symbol of comfort as well as a hiding place. He is

gathering his red sweater to keep himself warm because it is the sweater that John loves. The

narrator feels closer to John when he is wearing the sweater; the warmth of it is comforting when

he feels that John is leaving him forever. Cuadros uses the color red for the sweater because red

is a poetic symbol of blood, the heart, love, warmth, life, and of passion. The red sweater is a

metaphor for John's love; the poem narrator is wrapping John's love around himself as he

prepares to be at John's side in his final moments of life.

My cousin's mother died from AIDS in Haiti. She was in the hospital for two weeks. In

the first week, my cousins were crying and showing their feelings of sadness that their mother

was so ill. On the day that she died, my cousins did not cry. People were surprised by how my

cousins did not cry but I believe my cousins were accepting their mother's death for several

weeks before she died. This is a similar situation for the narrator of the poem, where he is

surprised by how cold he is and that he is not breaking down with sadness even though he is

preparing to be at the hospital while John is actively dying.

The last sentence of the poem is dramatic and passionate.

Later on people said time will heal,

 but the pain was too much to forget,

his life pounded out of my head

and all that was left of mine,

measured from that point,

4AM sharp and I began to howl.

This is like a dog who has been left alone in the world and is howling with sadness. When a dog

howls like this, you can feel a hollow chill of loneliness inside you. Cuadros writes that friends

said time will heal but at this time, the narrator cannot imagine ever forgetting the deep pain of

this moment. The narrator expected to be at John's side for the moment of his death, and he

cannot believe that he was not there for John's last breath. When Cuadros uses the word howl, it

gives the reader the sensation that they are able to hear the narrator crying for John. The howl is

a sensory literary tool to allow the reader to experience the sadness of the poem's narrator.

In 2009, I received the painful news that my father had passed away due to complications

from a heart transplant. I couldn't go to his funeral because I was in Panama and he died in the

United States. I could not get a visa to visit the U.S. because the application took too long to

process and I also didn't have the money to pay for the application. I felt like my heart had

broken, and my body felt weak with sadness. Memories of my Dad kept going through my mind;

I could feel his arms around me when I was a young child and I could remember him throwing

me in the air. The last time that I had spent time with him was two years before he died. I wish

that I had been able to spend more time with him. I thought he would live much longer because

the last time that I saw him, he looked vibrant and healthy. The news that he had died was a big
shock for me and for all of my family. When he died, I found the gold watch that he had given

me, and I wore it on my wrist to feel closer to him, even though the watch was no longer

working.

My memories of my father's death are similar to the feelings that Cuadros describes after

John's death. The poem narrator is devastated that John has died alone at the hospital, without his

lover at his side. When I heard of my father passing, I wished I could have been at his side in his

last moments. When the narrator states that John's life was pounding out of his head, this may

mean that his memories of his life with John are filling his mind and it's too much for him to

handle. The use of the word "pounding" connotes pain and is reminiscent of a migraine. The line

"all that was left of mine,/measured from that point," may be that he is seeing his bleak future

without John. The way that Cuadros writes about the rest of the narrator's life, it seems as if that

life will not be long. It also seems to be forshadowing his own death due to AIDS.

This poem is powerful because it contains so much emotion and grief; the reader can feel

the strength of the emotions as they read the words that Cuadros wrote. I believe this poem is not

only written for John about John's death; this poem is a universal poem for anyone who has lost a

loved one. Cuadros must have written this poem to process his grief after his lover died. He may

have also written this poem in memory of all the people dying from AIDS. I can relate to this

poem because I felt this way when my father died. I will always feel a deep sadness that he is no

longer with me in his physical form. Cuadros uses symbolism and metaphor to convey his ideas

to the reader of the poem. Symbols that Cuadros uses include cold and heat, the hankerchief, the

red sweater, and the comb. Imagery found in the poem includes the pounding in his head after

John's death. It gives the reader a feeling of his pain and also a sensation of rhythm. The poem

"5. 4AM" uses words to share the memory of Cuadros' dear friend and lover, John. The six
poems act as squares of a quilt of poetry, similar to the physical AIDS Memorial Quilt. As the

AIDS Memorial Quilt pieces together stories of loved ones who have died, Cuadros' poems in

The Quilt Series are a detailed and emotional recollection of his love and his own life that he has

left behind for us to feel a part of.

Works Cited

Cuadros, Gil. City of God. San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1994.

Lateef, Yasir. The AIDS Memorial Quilt. The NAMES Project Foundation, 2019.
https://www.aidsquilt.org/. Accessed 17 September 2019.

Sharp, P.M., and Hahn, B.H. Origins of HIV and the AIDS Pandemic. Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory Press, 2011. doi: 10.1101