Ferrara. A Weekend Like This

At the Frenchwoman's place, at night, and then Ferrara. You drive, it's only two hours. The castle facing us, the bicycles, the companions of a journey a thousand years old, the rain. Dinner at the Barchessa, amid endless words in motion, words about music, about cinema. Around the table, northern Italy recounting the rest of the world. And night again, the fog lining the cars on the ribbon of dirt road, the farmhouse immersed in the countryside, the big black dog seeking contact. The cold in the room. The bed. The two of us in the dark. Whispers and laughter, caresses and pyjamas slipping off under the covers. Kisses on the perimeter of the forehead, the cheekbones, the cheeks and the neck. Hands on the breasts, hands on the belly, my hands on you, yours on my skin, your broken breathing, nervous legs, taut muscles. I love you.

And then the alarm. The back taking revenge for not having slept, the light through the slits of the shutters, your eyes, your smile, inside the embrace that never ceased. The senses waking up, the shiver that seizes us again and again, the joy of you, the intoxication you find in me. "My love…"

Among the travelling companions again. Breakfast. Diamonds, the palace, and Symbolism, a bit off-key, let's say, without a harmony that speaks of us. And of this love suspended in a pocket of air that knows no time, annuls space. Can Klimt do that? But not here, not in this exhibition.

Another restaurant, again the rain over the castle. And the farewells, the departure for home, yours. I drive, what's a couple of hours of Apennines and rain. The living room ahead, the door behind, urgency appears, "let's go over there and make love". Dinner for two, finally, and again the bed, to sleep, at last, sleep until tomorrow. Your yoghurt, coffee, honey, toast. And kilometres between us, tens and hundreds of kilometres behind me, plain, sea, mountain, plain, mountain. "Tell me it will pass quickly, Nath, the night is so cold when you're not here".

continues at