Magnolia Grandiflora by Bonnie Bishop

Magnolia Grandiflora by Martin Johnson Heade, 1895.

Magnolia Grandiflora

Like a languid
girl the blossom
reclines
 
on a swirl
of plush red
velvet.

Framed by
glossy green
sepals,
 
the ivory
petals unfurl
revealing
 
the stamen’s
nubbly pearl.
The cut stem
 
has already begun
to shrivel,
to curl.

Bonnie Bishop

Bonnie Bishop's chapbook, O Crocodile, came out through Finishing Line Press in 2009.  Her book Local Habitation was published by Every Other Thursday Poets, a long-running poetry workshop of which she has been a member for several decades.  She has been interested in ekphrastic poetry for many years, using visual prompts in her own teaching and leading a workshop at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts for teachers on writing ekphrastic poems.  This poem is from a series called "American Wing," based on 19th century paintings in the MFA.