Everyone has a need to matter, even if only for a little while,
and sometimes we can be oddly specific,
like when you mentioned a certain Morris Minor
parked on the corner of King Street and Merkland Road
while asking if I would look at you again in the morning.
Then you turned off the bedside lamp, so I couldn’t see you
wondering if this would sound different in French or Pirahã.
I guess melancholia is the word, but only if neither of us
is bold enough to point out the fact that we are both twisting
the meaning of repentance. Perhaps it’s not so much regret
for what we’ve done, or even fear of what might happen to us
because of it, as an attempt to feel something, anything
—anything at all.