First Love by Jan Owen (Lavinia)

First Love

BY JAN OWEN

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 toffee 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 moustache,

pigskin gloves.

Level: Lower Sec

Themes: Youth, First Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Unrequited Love, Reading & Books, Sciences, School & Learning

Stylistic features: Free verse, parentheses