Telegrams of the Soul

Poem

I hired a girl for the night.

So what.

Before she fell asleep she said: “Are you a poet?”

“Why? Could be. So what.”

“I once made up a poem myself—.”

“?!?”

“How dear to me you are.

Now you’re so far—.

So what.

Let ’em write on my gravestone:

‘I love you alone!’

Nobody will know who and whom—.

So what.”

I gave the girl ten Gulden instead of five—.

“Oh,” she said with a smile, “five is all we agreed on.”

“So what. My calculation’s on the mark. Look here, my girl, how precisely I tally—

five for your sweet body and five for your sweet soul!”