triolet

I fell in love with Sara’s nape,
Between her short black hair and collar.
Tonguetied and ugly as an ape,
I fell in love with Sara’s nape,
Its coolness, whiteness, slender shape;
She never knew I was its scholar.
I fell in love with Sara’s nape,
Between her short black hair and collar.

(For a few weeks when I was 15 I was in a coed class, for
the only time in my education. Sara sat in front of me.)