T he woman was standing on the corner of Duval and Caroline streets about 20 feet away from where I had just deposited my last fare, a besotted man from Brooklyn who thought he was trying out for the role of Tony Soprano.

One more ''bada-bing, bada-boom'' and the guy might have found himself sleeping with the fishes. After this character poured himself out of my taxi, the woman approached and asked if I was free.

And the angels sang . . .

Her voice was like a symphony, offering equal parts of the ecstasy that is the harp's song, the pathos of weeping violins, the staccato heartbeat of the timpani, the vibrant, life-affirming clash of cymbals.

Every word she said was poetry. It was Browning, Gibran, Dickinson flowing like nectar across her tongue.

She moved like a goddess. Her eyes were as blue as a mountaintop sky and sparkled like a pure bright star. She made the universe seem small.

I fell in love. Again.

Key West can do it to you. It can blend soft gossamer breezes and the tang of salted sea air, toss them with the steamy floral scents of night-blooming jasmine, then stir in the circus of Duval Street and its quirky characters and magically turn the mixture into love.

A BAD HABIT

Before you get the wrong impression, here's the gospel. It's a habit I have, falling in love. I am casually stricken like this at least a dozen times a year. Not quite the bane of my existence, but rather the cross that I bear (if that's the appropriate expression for a Jewish serial romantic). I infatuate easily. And I'm harmless. I am also grateful for the fact that my wife thinks it's a hoot.

Mae, the woman who stole my heart, asked me to drive her to Winn-Dixie; it came out ''Fly me to the moon.'' Obviously my imagination has a tendency to take wing.

She had never been to the Southernmost City before. ''I had to see what Key West has to offer.'' She added, ``It's a pretty neat little town.''

Brahms' Lullaby, I thought.

She was exuberant. ``Topless dancing, tattoo parlors, music everywhere. This is a very sexy town. The only thing I haven't found is gambling.''

Gershwin! Cole Porter!

I explained that the gambling boat that had operated out of Key West still sits in 18 inches of water in the mangroves a dozen miles north of town, where it was deposited by the storm surge that followed last year's Hurricane Wilma.

''Imagine that,'' she said.

Some John Lennon thrown in for good luck.

Mae and her husband had taken this vacation as a birthday gift to each other. She was elected to pick out the cake for their evening's celebration.

``Our birthdays are only a week apart so we celebrate both of them somewhere in between, but never on either exact date.''

Mae asked me to guess her age. This is always a delicate situation.

''Ageless,'' was my response, a wishy-washy, on the fence, safety-zone answer to this potentially explosive question.

She loved it, then told me that her husband was two years younger than she was. ''I snatched the cradle,'' she giggled.

A cherub laughed.

Her husband was 88 years old; Mae was celebrating her 90th birthday.

The nonagenarian looked decades younger and none the less beautiful, which I told her.

She patted my cheek, and despite my gray hair told me what a ''good boy'' I was.

I nodded, trying to wipe the silly schoolboy grin off my face.

Mae returned my smile. I melted like a pat of butter on a toasted English muffin.

HEAD OVER HEELS

When I got home and told my wife about the events of the day and how I had fallen head over heels for Mae, she laughed and responded with a ''good for you'' attitude. Her voice soft as velvet, her eyes intelligent and joyful, her beauty endless.

``I hear music and there's no one there . . . .''

There I go. I've fallen in love again.