Anna Akhmatova
I thought I already knew about insomnia...

I thought I already knew about insomnia,
All its abysses and trails,
But this is like clattering horses
Under a trumpet’s wild shriek.
I step foot into empty houses,
Into someone else’s domestic life.
All is still except for the white shades
Afloat in foreign mirrors.
And where is that in the mist — Denmark,
Normandy, or somewhere
I myself once was,
And what is this — a new edition
Of moments long since forgotten?

Translated by Don Mager