The Unknown Couple Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The unknown couple
Lunch hour a woman was coming out of a bookshop
dressed in a white blouse and a long black skirt.
She met a man outside he wore brown striped suit too big
for him and together not holding hands they walked down
a street that was dusty and had waste papers on a road that
had not seen rain for a long time perhaps never.
I wanted to know who they were and followed them
they hastened their steps rounded a corner and went into
a cheap looking Chinese restaurant.
They ate rice and curry
Washed down with coca cola
She held his hand for a moment
Was it love?
Or did she reassure him about an impending breakup?
I wanted to know their story
how they ended up here in third rate restaurant
spending the hour of freedom from work there and
walking in a shoddy street enveloped by sadness
and lost the opportunity or was I in an Edward hopper painting
I said to myself: I could write a novel about this but
as a poet, I`m too lazy to write one