SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN ITALY

we had met in a little seaside town just north of Marseille in the cool summer of 1975. It had been 2 years now and I could barely remember what life felt like before it all. she was a young writer from Sicily, 20 something with eyes that burned with desire and dreams for a life that simmered somewhere in the dark. for some time it was beautiful, long days spent by the water with the cliffs on each side of the beach, hot walks back to the car, her cheeks warm and red in the s

the winter had finally set in across Paris and the city was beginning to freeze under blankets of snow. some nights we would watch shadows dance on the walls as the snow fell like feathers and the fire smoked in silence. she would rest against my chest for warmth, falling asleep as the sky bled with midnight and my heart bled with pain. although the time for me to write about the love that I found in the summer was beginning to end, I still felt like there was so much more to

it was as it had to be, the spring of 1993 in the Alps just north of Lake Garda. hot nights and sleepless days, bathing by the Lake as the sun passed gently over the mountains, cool mornings in the Chalet, her bare feet on the floorboards by the fire. carrying her from the bathtub to the bedroom, the way her skin felt pressed against mine, the way her arms wrapped around my neck and she kissed my shoulder. the handsome young knight with his books and his words, the princess w