I love you Before sleepiness, after wakefulness, in my exercise of dreaming about you as I arrange my bed, in greeting the room number, in the lazy mornings-three times a week, delighted with how I saw you in my sleep. In comparing situations, complementing the poor guard with a few words about the ancient history of his country, reassuring the Indian servant by paying her in advance. In escaping from you to a mountain that shelters me, and escaping to you from the flood of longing on my shoulders. In the voice of the black songstress on the jazz music, and guessing her deep relation with the old musician. In the shine of glasses, the color of clear drink, the melting of ice, the lip’s anticipation of a new poison.