by Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles and say we have no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired and gobble up samples in the shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit…
You go girls…!
