Magnolias
What do we make of magnolias?
Like beaks of exotic birds, their buds
break from bare branches, singing
themselves open into sculptural
pink and white waxworks of flames.
You were given a Magnolia Susan
one birthday. Not caring for our garden,
it managed one clutch of deep pink flowers
before abandoning the idea of further blooms
after an assault by a man re-doing the fence.
But it doesn’t matter much, I suppose.
Magnolias are mainly mnemonics:
whether denuded in winter, or dressed
in summer green, we tend to see them
the way we fancied they looked in the spring.