There's only one naked lady left, going to ruin out there in the fog amid the dahlias and lavender, its pink trumpet flowers wilted and in tatters. There used to be a couple of dozen of them blooming in the yard every August. Not much else was out there in the yard doing much of anything so the ladies made quite a spectacle of themselves, like Rockettes in a dusty frontier town. The neighbour on the third floor got a horticultural bee in his bonnet about seven years ago and dug the girls up, except the one. Of course, they weren't symmetrically arranged and, like some outlandish pink crepe accessory, didn't really go with anything else. But I hated to lose them. Like Paris, they looked their best in grey light.

LRB 4 November 2004 | PDF Download