requiem for Sharon Beattie in 1958

Sharon was a real beauty,

tall and lithe with a captivating smirk

which sent lesser young men

to woodworking shop concealing their boners.

I was around and so was she

but sometimes I got the feeling

that she kept her distance on purpose.

she wasn’t panting for a boyfriend,

she could’ve had any one of them to play with.

later, daydreaming from the 4th floor window

of a cantankerous Study-Hall,

I pinned Sharon Beattie against

my locker on the second floor across from

the room reserved for home economics

and read one of my poems close to her ear;

the one about a terrible car crash which injured

three people and killed an innocent cat.

she was horrified, but in a sense

I was saying: "now you have a reason

to keep your distance" and within the daydream she did,

albeit with a newfound sense of curiosity about me, and

given the persona which was Sharon Beattie, that was enough.