Veronica the fruit woman

Half a smile as the morning sets it´s heat for midday
reddish cheeks and cynical winks
The calmness of the prestorm grey
somehow blessed

Short stubby legs keep her active
Over the fruit on sale

The love a grandmother might want to reserve
Keeping the bitterness below the lines that might form
On her aging face

she looks at every customer and passerby differently
at each face as if there were truly a soul behind 
but sometimes the wince and tight lemon lips
Lets us know there was no soul in that passerby 

 Not a second but a wide berth I give them
For the stare of veronica passes through to the little essence
Or lack there within
The abundance and life of fruit reflects in her face

Not a simple grocer
but a lost saint living a life curbed by others voices
the well intentioned and mal intentioned vying to influence
Neither awate that they don´t inflict or gain points

For the woman who sells that fruit old as she is
Is but a little girl who recieves each day as a present
And unwraps it in the street as she reaches for change
Or as she bags that fruit as she has done for decades