THE TWENTY THREE INTEGERS

It was love at first sight
but when my ears had a second
of your sweet creamy voice after the third serenade
I had an emotional turmoil for the fourth time
whether to love you more times than the fifth instance
or to become a hermit of love with a sixth star of David

Your worthy number seven in the seventh day
of the week had eight colours of the rainbow
the extra being the paint that was the rain in the cloud nine
I could wish for it more than ten times
in the zenith of beauty of the eleven silver linings of the cloud
which has blissful wholeness like the sainthood of the twelve

Let discolour the portrait of our thirteen secrets
and paint fourteen of them
in fifteen sapphire crystal vases
to be the sixteenth reason for our friendship
for the seventeenth time I declare my love to you
but on the eighteenth instance I will propose

Will you marry me on nineteenth?
so that on twentieth I will not be a married virgin
only twenty two for the sides of the coin
in your unfathomable worthiness you are my twenty three stars
that make my night an ecstatic eternity
no integer can amount my love for you
only those twenty three integers
of a permanent heart damage