Saudade During Insomnia

Once, I read you Rilke,

who wrote about this

lament-world nested

in a silent star-filled heaven,

a lament-heaven,

with its own

disfigured stars.

I take a sedative;

I pale in the blue light

of reruns. The same

stories, I know all

the lines and how all

the heart can really do

is beat itself to death.

Once, I dreamed

we passed each other

in a basement hallway

lined with paintings

of all the houses

I’ve had to leave.

You didn’t see me;

you kept walking,

unlike me, idiot that I am—