Her mother named her White Dahlia, the consequence
of unplanned pregnancy while studying forensics. Or so

she told the boy selling orchids in popcorn bags (he ran out
of sheet music and poetry books). Renaming her Orchid
he’d ram into her all night so their breathing would fog up the
windows, an eternal 21C. A common misconception:

flowers have no bones. He learned what it means to
have a backbone when she broke his fangs
like sugar cubes.

A glass slide is too small a coffin for one convinced she
was “beloved”. The strawberry cigarette ash
should have been the tip-off. Rarely
will a botanist throw their own child under Industry’s wheels.