April 29, 2025

magnolia

At the sign for the Merrimac turnoff, something unspools.
Cinematically, the clouds part, the dashboard readout
says 68 degrees, and I’m floating in the sudden amniotic spring
going 70 in the left lane of 495 en route to the curled driveway
at the foot of my mother’s house. Some visits, I’m a fledgling
returned to the nest. On others, I gauge the interstitial changes
from last season, notice the particulars of molting. This time,
I’m hungry for magnolias and mown grass, for college kids
lined up at the dairy farm that doubles as an ice cream shop,
for evidence of anything that refuses containment, and instead spills
past its own edges, calling out to anyone who might listen,
“I am, I am, I am.”