Mysql not closing connections

Question

I have a Java application that configured with a connection pool. I have ensured that the application terminates the connections properly.

However when I run this command on mysql command line -

show status like '%onn%';

+--------------------------+-------+
| Variable_name            | Value |
+--------------------------+-------+
| Aborted_connects         | 2     |
| Connections              | 72    |
| Max_used_connections     | 10    |
| Ssl_client_connects      | 0     |
| Ssl_connect_renegotiates | 0     |
| Ssl_finished_connects    | 0     |
| Threads_connected        | 2     |
+--------------------------+-------+

Why does mysql keep the connections open when they have been terminated from the client?

The contents of my.cnf file are (comments and unimportant sections omitted) -

[client]
port        = 3306
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

[mysqld]
user        = mysql
pid-file            = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
socket      = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
port        = 3306
basedir     = /usr
datadir     = /var/lib/mysql
tmpdir      = /tmp
lc-messages-dir = /usr/share/mysql
lower_case_table_names = 1
skip-external-locking

key_buffer      = 16M
max_allowed_packet  = 16M
thread_stack    = 192K
thread_cache_size   = 8

myisam-recover      = BACKUP

query_cache_limit   = 1M
query_cache_size    = 16M

expire_logs_days    = 10
max_binlog_size     = 100M