Not sure how this is coming over but it is intended as a poem with 
three-line strophes. Bob

The Fair Lass



Somewhere in the tangled thickets
of memory, where I hid her, the Fair lass
still moves as she did that sunlit afternoon,

nubile and slender, nimble in old shoes;
the crescent hoop of an earring still shines
through the shock of her black hair.



Away from the sudden canvas city in the park,

the smell of diesel, trodden grass and churned ground,

away from the serpent cables in the grass

the path to the river was hot with dust,
heat-sucked odours of nettle
and yarrow filled the delirious late spring air.

A flock of wild boys, we danced around her,

wheeled and darted, plucked at her thin blouse,

as crows might pluck at carrion on the path.



She danced free of us as a brown breast,

crowned with a dark rose,

bloomed.

My breath became stone in my throat;
I stumbled, alone, trembled to spend

my startling homage in the masking grass.