Once, A Summer Poem by jan oskar hansen

Once, a Summer.


It was a special Nordic summer, its night was
short when walking home to change and go
to work, no one about so early, but a cat going
home after a night of murderous pursuits, there
it will drink a saucer of cream, curl up on a sofa
and its owner would never know what a vicious
killer she had in her house.

I was in love, the taste of her still clung to my
hungry lips, it was the best of times to be in love
and after work I would see her again and again;
she was so lovely this morning, and in her brown
eyes I read nothing but true love-: “Come back
soon darling, ” she had whispered by the door,
before gently closing it.

She wasn’t there that evening: “gone to another
town to work, ” a neighbour said, “with a man
in an Oldsmobile car, ” (and in her brown eyes
I read nothing but true love.) The night misted
hasting towards autumn, trees shed green leaves,
and as cooling rain drizzled my short summer of
innocence was over.