Skeleton ribcage and pelvis with red and yellow roses

The roses on the orchard wall came all at once this year, red first and then the yellow ones Mum put in the summer you were born. I cut a basket on Tuesday and took it into the cider barn, where I found the old anatomy torso Grandad bought at the college clearance sale. Someone had propped it on the cider press with its wire spine rusted through, and the roses had got in. They had threaded between the ribs the way bindweed finds a gate, and by the look of it they had been at it all August.

I stood there longer than I meant to. The pelvis was still hanging from its hook, the orange roses spilling over the lower ribs like something poured. Mrs Hollis from the Bramley farm came in behind me for vinegar and asked what I was staring at. I said nothing, I was only admiring the work. She laughed and said the wasps would be in it by September, and she was right, there is already a nest tucked in the pelvis.

I have not pulled them out. The pickers start on Monday and Dad says the barn belongs to them for the week, so I suppose the skeleton will go out to the lane with the windfalls. Still, I left the basket of cut roses on the press beside it, and the light through the slats fell across the ribs and the petals, and I thought you would have liked it. Write back and tell me whether you still think I should have sold it.

Love, Jo