He and his wife ran a high-class grocery shop
and I was often outside, looking in, absorbing
rarefied air of middle-class living, that was till
his wife saw me and shooed me away.
War came, the window display got a bit thinner,
by now there was also a sprinkling of officers of
the occupying army. A grocer hears things and it
can, if whispered in the right ear, be advantageous.
The war ended and the grocer had money to paint
his shop in bright colours, which was nice in a war
weary drab little town. Time is an enemy, his wife
died, he displayed her picture amongst Portuguese
sardines. And we all came to look. A supermarket
opened and we lost interest in a little grocer shop.
