Salad Days

In my salad days I could not stop
having a crush on all the female teachers.
I fell in love with each, but my favourite
was the one who taught us mathematics.
It was from her that I learnt useful tips
on how to solve some difficult quadratics.
I hung on every word from her sweet lips
and trembled when she was in the vicinity.
She was very knowledgeable and adept
at explaining everything in simple terms
but I could not get to grips with the concept
that parallel lines will meet - eventually -
if they're taken, as she asserted, to infinity.
I was unable to see how they could merge
and yet I firmly believed that our lives,
which were also parallel and equidistant,
would, one day, draw nearer and converge.
Though I wished and waited for an eternity
my dearest dream did not come to pass:
she left education in favour of maternity.

© Luigi Pagano 2006