57th street, rose city, oregon

I’ve known for a while now about Portland being the “Rose City,” but until last week, it never meant much to me. Right now, though, I’m sitting on about 100 fat blossoms—that’s counting both the backyard and front. Sweet pale pink. Deep crimson. Yellow. Yellow with juicy peach tips. Fuschia with delicate white centers. Miami Vice electric pink. Et cetera. Due to some mystic alignment of planetary bodies, moisture levels, and soil content, they’ve reached a sort of frenzy of amazingness that I’ve never before witnessed on my plot of land. I have them stuffed in jars and old bottles in every room, as fat as your face and efusing a luscious haze that’s the exact stuff of spring fever.