XVII. AT THE END OF THE HORIZON You go on living at the end of the horizon. You move beneath the sky that kisses the steeples of churches, ardent angels, and the medieval rooftops. You are farther away than my dreams can reach. I nestle in the arms of your memory, embrace your absence as if it were a lover. I walk down the road bearing your name, restlessly dream of kissing your face beneath the stars and the wide-eyed moon. I am the compass that measures distance, that aches and aches for distance to be conquered. Oh lie with me again, tell me of how the night is dangerous, of how we need to suck poison out of one another, so that we may truly live. The oceans cry because we are apart, and the sky is rended by the wings of gulls. We burned the night away, set it on fire and watched it burn. Then we filled the charred silence with our pleasured voices. Passionate hours, hours of sweetness, hours of disappearing delicacy and coarse refinements: we lived them within the compass of one another. Where are you tonight, Isabella, in whose arms do you lie dreaming?