Love Poem: Love Is a Long Way Home
Jan Oskar Hansen Avatar
Written by: Jan Oskar Hansen

Love Is a Long Way Home

Love, is a long way home

We worked together in the same hotel at a coastal town, 
I was a cook; she was doing the washing up…Her name 
was Ella one of the few names I recall from my youth.
When we´re busy she often looked at me and smiled, 
at quiet time we drank coffee she had made. I had many 
girlfriends but Ella was my friend. The pay at the hotel
wasn´t much so I quit and went back to sea again.
At the railway station, Ella was the only one how came 
to say goodbye, I kissed her; her aroma of love lingered 
on my lips. I promised to write but the dizzying dance
of life  went on and I never wrote. 
I drove back to the coastal town, the hotel wasn´t there 
been replaced by a supermarket, no one knew Ella. 
But I sensed her nearness, so I walked in streets we had 
walked, came to a small café, I saw her serving coffee. 
I entered, she hadn´t changed much, she served me, but 
it she didn´t remember me. Full of sadness knew I had 
pursued a past that could not be repeated.
But just as I was about to leave, a furrows creased her
forehead and she remembered me…. Forty years, a bit 
 late for children, but I work in her café as a cook.