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Chad Sweeney | The MagnoliaThe magnolia began somewhere down there
in the fissure between buildings, the concrete
wrapped tightly round her waist. She must
have only scented daylight then,
fed on shadow and rot, her roots
growing flush against beams, licking
saffron rust from pipes.
—Just there,
outside my window, she broke free,
unraveled from her knotted trunk,
pushed with hips and shoulders skyward
across the seasons, following the map
she sketched in secret that first day.
Around her now the angles
of windows and roofs,
the gaunt, tubercular streets, clouds
in sparce calligraphy
encrypted against a sky slick with rain,
the marigold cat squatting beneath the smokestack,
drainpipes, the blackbirds shivering
along the wires:
The entire image
is painted in living miniature
on every bead of rainwater
clinging to her wrists and elbows.
And when the goldfinch releases
from the fire escape
upward into the sky
a thousand finches
release
into a thousand tiny skies.
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