In the house next to the milk bar at the corner
Lives an old Greek woman she is partly blind
She will be ninety one on her next birthday
And for her years she has a marvellous mind.

I've spoken to her at length I remember
And the story of her life she did unfold
She could not tell of wealth and fame and fortune
But none the less her story ought be told.

I first met her at the nearby Happy cafe
She asked me join her to eat cake and tea
Her story she did not try to gloss over
She told it in the frankest honesty.

She said my life story has 'whiffs of scandal'
But I will tell it to you just the same
And tell it if you wish to other people
But promise that you won't disclose my name.

I promised her that her name I wouldn't mention
When the story of her life I would relate
And her name forever with me is a secret
A secret that don't have a use by date

She told me she had never had a face lift
And she never used hair dye to hide her gray
And despite the wrinkles that the years had brought her
One could tell that she looked lovely on her day.

Her features not too small or not too man like
And she was not big or plump in any way
And though she still spoke with the slightest Grecian accent
Her English good and perfectly okay

For years she has not seen her son and daughter
And her grandchildren and their children she don't know,
She had a lot of things in her life happen
Since she left Greece sixty five years ago.

Her husband a carpenter she grew to hate him
Though at the start she loved him for a while
She found him domineering and cruel hearted
And he never cracked a joke or seemed to smile.

She left him when their children were teenagers
And moved in to live with another man
And this relationship too soured and foundered
All things in life don't always go to plan.

Her son and daughter turned complete against her
They hated her for walking out on dad
For nineteen years she worked hard for and loved them
And she was the one who was treated bad.

She's been in more relationships than she care to remember
And the longest only lasted a few years
And all she wanted was a loving soul mate
But all she knew was rejection and tears.

In the cafe by the milk bar at the corner
The story of her life she told to me
And she told me in her life were 'whiffs of scandal'
But in her story such I cannot see

An aged Grecian woman partly sighted
She know the past she cannot change the past is gone
And she says she holds no fears for the future
She has the will to keep on keeping on.

A book on her life would make a best seller
Though her story not of fortune, wealth and fame
And her identity with me remains a secret
As she asked me not to mention her by name.

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