Travel Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

They'd sent my cases to the city of Helsinki
reducing me to one pyjama and a Haines
she thought I was Australian and kinky
and tied around my ankles stainless chains.

No doubt she was a real looker and a Finn
no need for glasses as she saw what was to see.
There was much juvenile desire to get in
the call came early and it set my spirits free.

I shall, for reasons that are clear to all who read
not set my foot inside the tarmac of the Finns.
It is too precious, as an effervescent seed
to drip to bitumen, a sentinel of sins.