i.

     seven hours
are spent waxing lyrical and
kissing your eyelashes in the library,
    studying.
you mouth the third knuckle on my right hand,
and memorize the hollow of my cheek.


                     ii.

                       tender kisses press like
          afterthoughts and postscripts on my forehead:
                       

                                    p.s. te quiero.


iii.

you inhale so beautifully.


                    iv.

                           i will remember your iceberg-words.
                           
                           the door slams with
                           a crash,
                           like a glacier being born.
                           you fall into me seven hours later,
                           breathing frantic apologies and
                           nervously fingering the arch of your nose.

                                    later i will think of
                             bruises on my thighs and
                                           smile

v.

bells of ireland grow rings around the old oak
                                     where we would sit in
                                       dust-mote halos,
                                autumned and marooned.

                       you have carved our names
                        on the trunk, like something
                                     sacred.
                         
                           
vi.

you would rather have died nobly than lived in vain—

and so you did.

                        

                             vii.
                             
                             was your favourite number.