Magnolia bloom can sex the air until one thinks for long blanknesses only magnolia, magnolia. The tree shakes with the climbing of two girls. the taller, stretched among four branches looks up, carrying a knife. the other settles at a lesser place and thinks of falling. Magnolia withers if touched. The petals spot where the fingers were, then darken, spoiling the smell. A girl raised to be her daddy's boy knows to reach, slowing and slowing the hand until it wavers with the flower. She cuts the slight wood at the stem, tips to her a color of things hidden -- skin at the lifted clothes, or the shining averted face of a woman undressing. The younger girl will run alongside with the news. The flower floats all night in a glass, the kitchen lit in other places by the moon.