Their many storied nights are like this.

When the moon is past the luminous phase of midnight hour, with the flourish of a magician he slips his fingers beneath the penumbra of her sleepless skirt.

With compelling faith, he then places a clay fish on the straw mat and invokes the gods in their litany of pagan love.

She speaks in ideograms; he embraces her as if she was a religion.

He asks her, if you were a ship, she replies, I would be without a sail, if you were a day, I would be a holiday, if you were a sin, I would indulge you.

Soon, like driftwood on the night sea, they rise and fall, arm in arm, their solemn moonscapes in orbital sighs, one echoing the other.

Their ichthyolatry communion after, he strings the fishbone around her neck, an amulet and an offering, and they sleep through the unguis of the hours.

Sleep is but a lexicon of dreams, a pretext unhinged from its context.