Street Musicians

by

Jan Oskar Hansen 

They were an unlikely pair, he,

the flute player, was handsome in

the conventional sense, the type seen

in soap operas playing a doctor that

nurses fall in love with. The woman,

who accompanied him on a Spanish

guitar was extremely plain.





As the music took off a miracle

occurred she became a radiant beauty

filling the pedestrian street with a whiff

of the unattainable, of what I would,

if lucky, occasionally glimpse but

never possess, of perfection that only

exists in the mind of dreamers.





For a while the street was timeless

suspended in an abstract eternity till

the music concluded and she sank

back into her own plainness, thin

pale lips, inward looking eyes behind

thick lenses and her goddess’ body

hidden behind a long black dress.