THE PAST

 

 Solitude is like a rain
     —Rilke, The Book of Images

You in sleep knotted
beyond me, your other face
hidden like the dream
I can’t have,

I rise in darkness watching
darkness fill a night house
ruined with memories,
the stain of our lives

running down the windows
nothing can clean,
even the rain smells of it,
the way birds can’t escape,

in the high trees,
that river of shadows.