My pen friend was fatter

Than I had imagined her

This said she was very attractive

I rang my mother and told her

That I had arrived without harm

Even though the flight had been tedious

My painting was in a position of honour

On the wall facing the wide windows

I had painted a nude study of Christina

Using only blue grey and white

In short this was the reason I was here

As I was running away from my own reality

But there she was on the wall of Ines apartment

Staring critically over me as she usually did

Ines had contacted me after buying my painting

She asked if she might be my pen friend

I agreed as we were continents and time zones apart

A week or so later she sent me a photograph of her painting

In certain ways it hinted at my rough brush style

Losing One’s Innocence in Buenos Aires

It was a catchy title I have to admit that

But even by using my blues and greys it went nowhere

The following day we sketched in some of the public parks

Ines was far better with a pencil than a brush

As it slowed her eye and gave her time to think

Buenos Aires was a great distance from Tierra del Fuego

About nineteen hundred miles to the north

My friend had been born in Ushuaia where her family still lived

And we were travelling there on the following Saturday

I has come for a rest but was travelling in the fast lane again