The Witch Which Was

When I was a kid, we called
the miserable old lady on the corner
a witch because she'd shoo us off her
lawn and call the cops about our "gang"
for running across the yard she bent
double over every day battling weeds.
Now I am 50 years old and a poet,
shabby, but gentle. What would you do
if you looked out your kitchen window
and saw me playing in your backyard?

Note: This is an old one. When I originally wrote it, line 7 had a different age -- 35, I think. When I printed it in Deanotations, I updated it to 50 (that must have been in 1952). This time I'll let it be. (I'm 65.) After all, bodies age, but one hopes one's poems do not. (But they do; may they age well.)