RICHARD W HALPERIN
The Right Lady Is the Wrong Lady I am having breakfast on the terrace of the corner bakery, rue d’Estrées and avenue de Villars. I see at a distance a very old lady, bent nearly double, walking with a cane. She and I always wave when I am on that terrace. Closer, she is not that old lady, she is another old lady, and in fact she turns a corner.
Neither lady is The Bread Lady, as I have come to call her: a slim middle-aged woman always in a simple frock, bicycling each morning to the bakery to take yesterday’s unsold bread to those in need. She rides away with the wind blowing her hair, which she keeps short and fluffy as did so many ladies when I was growing up. The right lady is the wrong lady. They are all the right lady.
© Richard W. Halperin 2023 November - December POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
