Edward Hopper...Painter Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Once I Met Edward Hopper.

I was dining in a small hotel in downtown New York,
the food was ok, but the place eerily quiet, so I went
for a walk, it had been raining but the weather was mild.
Further down the street that was wide, yet not well lit
I walked into a cafe and had a coffee. A man sat by the counter
he wore a brown suit, but kept his brown hat on his head.
By a table two middle aged women, perhaps prostitutes.
The short order cook was frying a burger for the man in the suit
and I guessed he was a private eye on a mission.
On the other side of the road, a basement bar thought a whisky
would taste good, but when I tried to leave I could not,
It appeared I was caught in an Edward Hopper painting ca 1948.
Since I did not appear in the artist's original work, I tore myself
loose and with some struggle got out. Looking back saw my shadow
sitting there and the detective, was eating his burger.
Back at the hotel, no one at the reception desk I took a lift to my room
could not find it or any rooms, so I walked past the painting and walked
down into the basement bar that was deserted too save, for the private
dick, I now realised was Edward Hopper, and the two women but none
of them took notice me.