27 OCTOBER 1990, Page 31

Annie

(For Anne Rivaz)

Between Mobile and Galveston On the curve of the Texan coast, Overgrown with roses There is this most Ginormous bloody garden In which, itself another Bloody great rose, a villa blooms Among its flower-smother.

Often in that garden A woman walks on her own.

When on the limetree-bordered road I pass her overgrown Garden, we look at each other.

A Mennonite, she knows Neither buds on her rose-bushes Nor buttons on her clothes.

My jacket lacks two buttons. We are, one could almost say, Co-religionists. Could one not, In a buttonless sort of way?

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 — 1918)