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The Pink Gardenia
- The Missouri Review
- University of Missouri
- Volume 9, Number 3, 1986
- p. 60
- 10.1353/mis.1986.0026
- Article
- Additional Information
THE PINK GARDENIA / Ira Sadoff Almost forty, and just today I saw my first pink gardenia in the backyard of my neighbor. How much time I've wasted half-sleeping through my chores— clipping bushes, stalking weeds— when I should have dreamed this up just by looking. Shouldered by the prickly pear and a palm full of hummingbirds, the flower seemed on show, a museum piece, part of a movie set from Tahiti. The oval petals, as if just waxed, caught a drop of dew for me or anyone who paid attention. I've never seen that shade of pink before, except on my first love, the blush. The fragrance was a cup of tea, a robe of silk with my favorite body in it. I watched this bloom for hours till the petals folded up; and then, at home, thumbing through my guide to flowers, I guessed I got the genus wrong: I know it wasn't white or yellow, the one exotic, nameless flower that brought me to my senses. 60 · The Missouri Review ...