First Love
Titian’s Young Englishman with a Glove , circa 1530

It happened in Physics,
reading a Library art book under the desk,
(the lesson was Archimedes in the bath)
I turned a page and fell,
for an older man, and anonymous at that,
hardly ideal –
he was four-hundred and forty-five,
I was fourteen.
‘Eureka!’ Streaked each thought
(I prayed no-one would hear)
and Paradise all term
was page 179
(I prayed no-one would guess).
Of course
my fingers, sticky with coffee and bliss,
failed to entice him from his century;
his cool grey stare,
fastened me firmly in mine.
I got six overdues,
suspension of borrowing rights
and a D in Physics.
But had by heart what Archimedes proves.
Ten years later I married:
a European with cool grey eyes
a mustache,
pigskin gloves.

~~ Jan Owen