Gertrude Three Ways

I first meet Gertrude Stein during my Pablo Picasso phase, and my Hemingway phase, and my F. Scott Fitzgerald phase and then I come across her in Bryant Park in New York and I see her resting at Père-Lachaise in Paris and I would swear I see her in a little park in Mallory Square in Key West, Fla., but I don’t take a picture or don’t think I need one because I know her, I meet her everywhere, and now I see her in print, in a children’s book called The World Is Round with illustrations by the illustrator who illustrated Goodnight Moon and the children’s book The World Is Round is printed on pink paper with bright blue type and the main character is a girl named Rose who was really a girl named Rose who knew Gertrude who lived in France but I don’t know if the real Rose carved “Rose is a Rose is Rose” in a tree like the character Rose did. But Gertrude is always Gertrude.

—Lori Tripoli