Dust Devil

Most times, unadorned, thorny-personalitied, she hangs back, friendless, uncared-for, cruddy (almost), compared with her peers. Then, something happens—she senses spring, heightened light, heat, maybe. Dressing up, she chooses—ORANGE?—and bathes, I swear, in vats of her grandmother's French-whore cologne. Smacks you in the nose, letting you know from blocks away she's out and unabashedly accounted for: "Smell me, dammit!" I love you, you cheaply perfumed Sweet Acacia.

—Carl Stoeckel