A Tidings of Magpies

by Danielle Cadena Deulen They loved each other, but a lemon tree grew between them—no solace in the way it leaned, as if to whisper from her yard into his, across the coyote fence, a promise of something greater. The fruit was a luminous yellow, triumphant in the branches—at night, he'd stare at the tree's dim body, almost indistinguishable from the darkness, and imagine climbing into the V of its trunk, swallowing the lemons whole, his belly full of light. She'd quiver in her bed, dream of her arms turning to wood, snakes like ribbon over her radiant throat, lemons ripe in her hair. They remained hidden from one another, but gathered the fallen fruit, rolled them on their bedroom floors, severed them into halves—radial as open compasses—ate the brassy bitterness of their skins. Isn't this how it would taste: a sour citrus sprinkled with sugar, salt, the bitter aftertaste of rind? Or do you place an apple in her hand, a past sweetness in each crisp bite? please note:...

by Ted Kooser this Valentine's Day, I intend to stand for as long as I can on a kitchen stool and hold back the hands of the clock, so that wherever you are, you may walk even more lightly in your loveliness; so that the weak, mid-February sun (whose chill I will feel from the face of the clock) cannot in any way lessen the lights in your hair, and the wind (whose subtle insistence I will feel in the minute hand) cannot tighten the corners of your smile. People drearily walking the winter streets will long remember this day: how they glanced up to see you there in a storefront window, glorious, strolling along on the outside of time.

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796 Wisconsin is not the only state where a Republican governor is trying to diminish the voice of the people and create his own oligarchy. It's happening right here in "The Heart of it All." Hubby and I are leaving in a few for a rally at Big Fat University to protest Ohio State Bill 5, a blatant attack on unions in this state. I've worked with and without a union and I can tell you that nurses with a union have a better ability to speak up for patient care issues without fear of employment retaliation. Doesn't mean you don't get ...

Going in for the weekend. Helmet up!!

by Nikki Giovanni I would always choose to be the person running rather than the mob chasing I would prefer to be the person laughed at rather than the teenagers laughing I always admired the men and women who sat down for their rights And held in disdain the men and women who spat on them Everyone deserves Sanctuary a place to go where you are safe Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing to open their hearts as well as their eyes

Hump Day here in CinCity, though for me Tuesday and Wednesday have become my two days off and so more like a weekend. That is if you went to classes on the weekend. But, whatever, they're two days that I'm not wearing scrubs and peering into unsuspecting folks' eyes with a bright light looking for a little pupillary action. Up at the literal crack of dawn to drive the grrrrls on the street to their future alma mater. Since it's not freezing I don't mind the morning drive. The sky is a beautiful patchwork of indigo and the school's golden dome glows from blocks away. It's really quite handsome. I mostly have reading to do today. No discussion boards which I think take up a lot of time, although one can do the discussing in PJ's with the radio on in the background and a hubby explaining some important opinion concerning a piece of news, so there is that. Tomorrow I meet with the heat stress study group to go over the results of last year's live fire d...

"The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve; Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time." --William Shakespeare, MidSummer's Night's Dream Woke up before dawn to drink coffee and work on school stuff. This week the effects of Methylene Chloride (try to avoid) and Baker's Asthma from flour dust(who knew??) Next on the list, fighting with my computer to attach documents required by the IRB site in order to modify a firefighter study protocol. The computer technology is what gives me the biggest blues. I like my attachments to have color coded paper clips and to fit in my grubby little hands. During the last two days of work at Big Fat Teaching Hospital I saw the usual share of hope and futility. We got a transfer from a smaller community hospital across the way; a large stroke treated successfully with TPA, the "clot buster." This gentleman has no deficits from the stroke and hopefully will not have a subsequent bleeding injury. Nice man who starts each...

Happiness Paisley Rekdal I have been taught never to brag but now I cannot help it: I keep a beautiful garden, all abundance, indiscriminate, pulling itself from the stubborn earth. Does it offend you to watch me working in it, touching my hands to the greening tips or tearing the yellow stalks back, so wild the living and the dead both snap off in my hands? The neighbor with his stuttering fingers, the neighbor with his broken love: each comes up my drive to receive his pitying, accustomed consolations, watches me work in silence a while, rises in anger, walks back. Does it offend them to watch me not mourning with them but working fitfully, fruitlessly, working the way the bees work, which is to say by instinct alone, which looks like pleasure? I can stand for hours among the sweet narcissus, silent as a point of bone. I can wait longer than sadness. I can wait longer than your grief. It is such a small thing to be proud of, this garden. Today there were scrub jays, quail, a woodpeck...

It's dark when I leave for work in the morning. It's dark when I drive home, and when I get to glance out the windows it's nothing but grey. I can't sleep all the way through the night. I wake up and think about everything I have to get done. Two studies involving firefighters, flour dust and baker's asthma, and job hazard analysis. And, I'm intimidated by our scanner. Maybe a little a cup of Sleepytime Tea will do the trick tonight and I can sleep past three... An Early Start in Midwinter by Robyn Sarah The freeze is on. At six a scattering of sickly lights shine pale in kitchen windows. Thermostats are adjusted. Furnaces blast on with a whoosh. And day rumbles up out of cellars to the tune of bacon spitting in a greasy pan. Scrape your nail along the window-pane, shave off a curl of frost. Or press your thumb against the film of white to melt an eye onto the fire escape. All night pipes ticked and grumbled like sore bones. The tap runs rust over your chapped h...

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark or even eagle flew — And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.