We had hitchhiked to Oslo, Norway,

from the Baltic Coast,

to see Edvard Munch's paintings

In the afternoon

she tore through a downtown bookstore

in her brown leather coat,

purchasing an expensive, large book

with Pablo Picasso illustrations,

and I bought a book with Bob Dylan lyrics

It was April 1976, she was just eighteen, I twenty-seven

Drifting back to our cheap, sloppy hotel,

we made up a story along the sidewalk,

that we played out:

She was a whore and I a needy poet,

giving her an offer,

till we climbed the stairs to the room,

stripping ourselves naked as fast we could,

giving ourselves our due,

the old bed screeching like a sick cat vomiting;

the whole scene like something out of a post-war film

in Paris

Next day, hitchhiking back to Sweden

we got stuck in Örebro,

finding a grey hotel room,

where we fell asleep instantly

Next morning we had one of our frequent hot quarrels

about all and nothing,

and I up and left her,

hopping a train to Stockholm

and then a local back down to Gnesta,

hitchhiking the last miles back to our 8-room house

on a big Estate near the village of Stjernehof

on a tourist bus with a lonely driver and no passengers

She was already back there,

and I fucked her madly from behind

on the floor in the main room,

while she threw up all over the carpet

and had spiritual hallucinations

of netherworlds