flower

Elle Edwards was sitting on a raised flower bed outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Wirral, on 24 December 2022, when she was struck by two stray sub-machine gun bullets.

Through my eyes, this gave the flower a unique significance.

I secretly loved how the flower craned skyward, never quick to diminish its presence, what I considered its sharp elegance.

By the next decade, Japanese flower farmers were growing them across the Southland; the species was able to survive on little water and stretched up to five feet tall.

In 1952, as L.A. celebrated it 171st year, the bird of paradise was designated the official city flower by Mayor Fletcher Bowron, a Republican with a nasty appreciation for internment camps who would lose a bid for reelection that same year.