Love as I knew it at 17

Skipping school an hour early, in a rundown car, half-serviced.

Innocent rebellion just to make our parents nervous.

Self-conscious adoration meets affection unconstrained.

The tanlines of our uniforms exposed as clothes are changed.

We run on down the highway, families’ watchful eyes exchanged

For the ocean, sun-kissed skin and spontaneity half-staged.

Striding arm in arm, the ocean glitters on the right,

The just-past midday waters flash like cameras in the night.

Idle conversations made more moving by the novelty

Of new surrounds and feeling independent. The odd quality

Of mundane tasks made sacred now by teenage love’s ferocity

Our feelings new and earnest make each moment stand out sharply.

The clichéd power to stare for hours into each other’s eyes.

I stroke her hairline gently as the sun begins to rise.

It peaks in through the shutters and it casts ours silhouettes,

The shadows-two start blending as she nestles ‘gainst my chest.

A moment overwhelming and a heat builds in my breast;

I pray to Time and Luck in hopes they’ll honour my request

For time to stop. It won’t, but still, I stretch and strain its threads;

Resist the march of minutes, letting memory embed.

We’re dancing, turning lazily, her favourite song’s refrain,

The music and the feel of her impressed now in my brain.

The gift of youth’s the strength to cast aside the sceptics’ chain;

To stand athwart the future and insist it stay the same.