For Viviana

Sometimes I go to stay at Viviana's sunlight filled apartment. We sit on the colourful cushion against the wall and listen to music and read.  When the sun begins to sink, we head up to the roof to do yoga, spreading a blanket on the tiles. A man watches us from the balcony of his apartment building across the road, but we focus on the temple in the distance and he becomes nothing more than a floating orange light, the tip of a cigarette. We take turns leading, under the stars, feeling the warm breeze swirl around us. Later,  by the light of a candle, we talk. Our conversations are like pieces of music, rising and falling, moments of building, of reaching and then staccato thoughts, poetic in their disconnectedness. A stick of incense held by the red earth of a flower pot. The silky smoke curls up and out the window, a gift to those below. She dips an orange cup into a clay urn where the water stays cool and clear all day. In the morning we make arepas with our hands, kneading in the grated paneer. Finely chopped onions and tomatoes and eggs for colourful Viviana. We drink sweet coffee with jaggery, cafe campesino she calls it, and I wish that I could feel this beautiful language inside me, each word a kind of poem.