That evening there were salsa sounds
from every bar.

We ate chicken and salted potatoes
we drank beer and white rum
that tasted sweet as water

and next to us appearing from a woolly hat
a countenance more tanned than
and wrinkled as a walnut.

After, we were tired beyond compare
we spent the night in a bare convent

and suddenly it was no longer seven degrees
and she, the Malay girl, did not stop shivering.

A kettle of hot tea was brewed.
She wore your sailor-blue sweater.

Translation: 2012, Willem Groenewegen