Magnolias don't belong here. Listen to your name: Magnolia Lyrical, exotic, like other voluptuous wonderful explosions we never see — bougainvillia, eucalyptus, jacaranda honeysuckling toward climes a little milder, sultrier, less nasty, Southern. A Dolly Parton of trees. And the way you dress! Showy is not the word — velvety ballgown at sunrise conspicuous bouquet out of season. Ostentatious, meretricious, grandiose. Have you no shame? Grandstanding in all that floral fussiness, ruffly taffetas, magenta megalomania, fuchsia Cherubic satin whites, more blossom than branch, blooms flamboyant more than tasteful — and that scent — overwhelming! Like a glorious heap of peonies gone wild, spilling yourself all over the lawns, dripping gaudiness like a crystal chandelier to a lightbulb, baroque rococo castle to a soddie snowy egret to a house sparrow. Here where every little spindle and twig's an extravagance. Reprinted with permission from The Heartlands Today, vol. 5 Copyright © 1986 by Lorraine Duggin

Miracle at Stink Creek by Lorraine Duggin

CAPS We called the place Stink Creek; stench invaded our nostrils like foul incense while we knelt on the banks above a city's waste. Curious kids, we were not the stuff of heroes. Sunday mornings we gathered at that scene fastened to a spewing spout of sewage by the abominable objects of our fascination: the evidence of excrement. Borne through network underground of buried tubes — alive — the newborn lamb's arrival at the river seemed miraculous. He shot with refuse from the sewerpipe to a pool the Missouri drew into swifter stream. We brave a waterworld of debris and swirling, churning froth; with a pole we fished him in. Aborted. Premature birth. Expelled from the womb, his mother slaughtered. Wahtever cause, the castoff lamb, coat of filth, a discard from the packing plant floor, escaped somehow death at delivery, death by disease or drowning. We dragged him ashore, wrapped mewling neonate in nylon jackets fit only for Monday's wash. Dripping, astonished, we carried him home, proud parents handing out ribboned cigars, awestruck kings bearing gifts of gold, perfume. Reprinted with permission from Prairie Schooner, Summer 1986 Copyright © 1986 by Lorraine Duggin

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