Even the Magnolia
By Mendi Obadike

Even the magnolia, trapped
in the jaws of frost, catches
snowflakes on his tongue.
Whether numbed or bitten,
he knows the sting of winter
unlocks a green door. Even
the magnolia, like a once-lost
foreigner, trusts the seasons
of his second home, fears
daybreak in his first.

From Armor and Flesh (Lotus Press, 2003). Used with the permission of the author.

Poet, musician, and conceptual artist Mendi Obadike is the author of Armor and Flesh: Poems and the librettist of the Internet opera The Sour Thunder. Her awards include the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Award, and the John Hope Franklin Distinguished Teaching Fellowship, and she received the Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship with her husband, artist and composer Keith Obadike. Mendi is a Cotsen postdoctoral fellow in Race and Ethnicity in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University.

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