First Love

Where I spent two years as a college student

Do you remember your first love when you were young and not ready for a serious relationship? 

I was a college student at a girl's school. He was in a military school across town. We were together as much as possible for two years, walking on the beautiful campus, sitting under the giant oaks, and enjoying being with each other. That was love back then. But it was not to continue. I was going away to the university and he would be attending another military school as he planned to make the Army his career. I knew I didn't want to be a military wife. 

This poem is about our last date.

In Love Too Soon

Your aftershave still lingers on my skin,
the smell of bruised spring grass. Raindrops, 

like falling tears, track the glass that separates us.

I see you by the streetlight
as you walk away, your boots
careless of the puddles.

You stop, turn, look up. I glimpse
the anguish, the disbelief I etched
on your dear face.

You can only see a black hole 

in a red brick building filled

with other students like me.

I covet your embrace, your kiss,
but fear I’d not be strong enough
to send you away this time.

Our hearts meshed much too soon.
Love crept in while I was unprepared,
still trying to find the woman in the girl.

You grow smaller in the murky light.
Past the movie house where holding
hands on Saturday afternoons, we barely 

watched the screen.

Past Ray's diner where we first met,
where you gave me your captain's pin,

marked me yours for all the world to see.

I cannot turn my eyes away until, like
an apparition, you’re gone, vanished
into darkness and forever.

                --- Glenda Council Beall