We are in a former state, in a principality, of the Holy Roman Empire – it seems lost Etruscan is the way of speech here, filled with short sibilance and long silent vowels. Like soaring gothic; I can’t be sure; you are asleep. The quilts are separate; you are under yours; I am awake; there are watery streaks of light – in them I see a pale flash of breath as it catches and is carried off into uncertain dark. Neither one of us speaks the language; I am cold. The quilt doesn't quite cover me all, my chest is bared – my foot juts out, it rests on your thigh, which is warm; it feels good. The line of your jaw, your ear, your scent of sleep is balm to me; you turn on your side, face me, think, “he fucks me nice”; I think I fuck you good; I do it as often as I can, as well as good; you smile as you do in your sleep; you mutter something; you pull me toward you. I know. You are sick of me, with me. I note the he; I can feel it in your fingertips on my palm, when I squeeze them, make us fists. On your back, too, as you search through the closet, rifle the drawers, looking for something, what? I reach under the quilt, scoop up your head and all its lines in my hand. Christ, your hair is rough; bleaching has dried it, bled it, frightened vanity has brittled it; the tight curls are spongy, though, and soft in your way; your idea of beauty is tough on you; all silk to cherish between my fingers. God, I'm so lucky to love you; I am a restless male; my jerky sleeps are filled with encrypted passion, perilous, unremembered moments – a world subtly strange, pregnant with motions and colors and fracturing constellations; so close to crazy in the sinews as makes no difference. Go ahead; I can take you, your body, person, your need, habits: you, you easily feel your delicious dreams punctuated by pleasure while I, stretched as if to break, I push the temple crashing down and fail thereby to break the iron chains that bear me down, Christ. In another state, one not so enduring as the Holy Roman Empire, where the day and night through words fill the air, you once said, when once I could hear, you said, “you fuck me nice”. You open your eyes just for a moment now, smile into my wide-open eyes; uneasy, hard to control, I am strong and insistent – you are nowhere there; you have always felt that, haven't you? You have and put it aside: that it isn't about just you; my need’s for she, it’s power, it’s possession, it’s for a woman, my need’s penetration, her, a scent, a touch; having, holding, never letting go. Now, you reach for me; I am he. Ahh, Early Bird, you whisper, hoarse. I pull you to me and kiss under your eyes and at the corner of your slightest smile; you do not kiss me back; you let him, with pleasure; I do not understand it; he does not understand it; I feel sticky heat from between her breasts crushed against mine and the chill over the whole back of me, the tickle of that gold chain I once bought you; her sweat warms my heart’s skin; I hold you, he holds you; he has you as gently as ever I might as if she were her, were you, the fragilest crystal of the fastest hourglass reflected in the most infinite mirror; we are back to sleep as we have been so often before. God, you are sweet.