The Grocer and the Tango Teacher

She’s an indigenous, Argentinean, veterinarian
Teaching tango in a school
She works evenings, works mornings
And takes siesta in the afternoon
She takes walks and takes pleasure in the people that she meets
She sways her hips when she’s walking down the street
And when she smiles it tosses the Grocer’s head under feet
She is open to suggestion and intuitive
Just a person with a life to live

He’s an ex-commodore from Baltimore, runs a grocery store
And plays cards with senior gents
He smokes Cubans, eats reubens
And doesn’t believe in accidents
He telephones his daughter and her family in Santa Cruz
He walks down by the night clubs and listens to the blues
And when he sees the Tango Teacher, boy that’s his cue
He’s not always the most charming or talkative
Just a person with a life to live

Now she finally spies the Grocer crouching, stocking featured plums
He looks up and sees her walking to the school gymnasium
And then she smiles just for him
Then he knows he’d offer her whatever he could give
‘Cause for her, his life he’d live

So he shelves the back stock, closes up shop, picks some budded phlox
And walks down to the school
He gives her the flowers after an hour of watching
Tango from the corner wooden stool
He walks her by the blues clubs through the muggy summer nights
He, with pride, carries her shoes while she walks barefoot in delight
And then she falls asleep watching TV holding him tight
Just the little things that make their love definitive
Just people with a life to live

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