Japan Pink Dahlia

When my partner asked me what to hang above a couch, I briefly considered suggesting a life-size portrait of me in my pajamas, eating cereal straight from the box. But then I remembered we were aiming for "tasteful," not "restraining order," so I suggested a ceramic wall flower instead. "It's modern artwork" I explained, channeling my inner HGTV host. "Very now, very chic wall art decor." The flower in question was a small, green-grey number that bore an uncanny resemblance to a poppy, if poppies grew up in the shadows of nuclear power plants. It had the sort of coloring that made you wonder if it was intentionally avant-garde or just feeling a bit under the weather. "It's perfect," he mused, eyeing the blank space above our couch like a general surveying a battlefield. "It'll really tie together our collection of mismatched throw pillows and that mysterious stain we can't seem to get out of the upholstery." As we stood there, contemplating this ceramic wonder, I couldn't help but feel