Intermezzo Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Intermezzo

I was in Huelva in 1958, a poverty-struck town in Spain
there were Tivoli carrousels and all that
I met a beautiful gipsy girl barefoot in the dust.
We laughed a lot; I don't know why and she kissed me
passionately in the park.
Her father came, he was grim, she cried, to mollify him
I gave my Ronson gas lighter, no one else on the ship
had a lighter like this.
The father was pleased but walked off with his daughter
and my lighter
That's ok 40 years later, I stopped smoking