The Freshet
Fare Forward Poetry Competition: Honorable Mention
By Magda Andrews-Hoke
No moral in the marigold
at last.
Now cast
in calm of day. Not being told
to grow, or watered
into whimpering,
not dimpled
with the doubts of winter,
lashed to stakes,
uprooted, weeded, made
to ache
for sun, mistaken
for a thing in need
of pruning. Just
blooming. Trusted
by those whose own beauty
is always scapegoat,
is lost grace, is
place of barrenness, is
immoral marigold.
Magda Andrews-Hoke lives in Philadelphia. She has an MLitt in Theology and the Arts and was the 2019 recipient of the Frederick Mortimer Clapp Fellowship. Her poems can be found in Commonweal, Transpositions, and The Yale Logos.
