Underneath her clothes

One of the more modest highlights of last summer involved a late afternoon - lambent, the poets would call it - at Patterson Park, where we fulfilled a Baltimore goal of mine by seeing the locally famous All Mighty Senators live, on the slope. And, months later, what still sticks with me from that show is the tight, focused energy and controlled humor of one song, whose joyful refrain ran: "Everybody knows I've got no clothes on / Underneath my clothes."

Roughly nine months later, one of Cleo's favorite words is nuku, which implies nakedness, is usually pronounced with a cavalier delight, and which may derive (say the local etymologists) from 'no clothes.' Did the roots of Cleo's neologism first take shape, before she could talk, while she watched the All Mighty Senators?

I can't answer that. But, for the moment, I can assure you that there's rarely any ambiguity about what Cleo's wearing, underneath her clothes. Delighted that she can put on her own pants, but still unable to pull them up all the way, she proudly shows the world that she's sporting a onesie, underneath those clothes.