A Tidings of Magpies

My Dead Friends by Marie Howe I have begun, when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question to ask my dead friends for their opinion and the answer is often immediate and clear. Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child in my middle age? They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads to joy, they always answer, to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were — it's green in there, a green vase, and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes. Billy's already gone through the frightening door, whatever he says I'll do.

Lenten Dissent by Cherie Lashway There once was a logger, named Paddy O'Connell, Who at lunch during Lent, found himself at McDonalds, And had just settled down to his Big Mac and fries, When along came his priest, much to both their surprise. The priest said to Paddy, "Just what are you eating? In this season of Lent, I sure hope you're not cheating." Paddy said to the Father, "I'll tell you no lies. I'm enjoying a Big Mac, along with some fries." The priest said to Paddy, "I see no repentance. Because of this sin, you will have to do penance. "By Friday or sooner, I say that you should, For our fireplace, deliver a cord of chopped wood." Now our timberman, Paddy, an overworked man, Did think to himself, "I don't think that I can." But early on Friday, our priest, he heard shoveling, And looked out the window at Paddy not groveling. And saw with confusion, disma...

by Faith Shearin In the old days, before houses were warm, people did not sleep alone. Not even windows went by themselves into the cold sheets of night. Rooms were lit with lanterns and children were encouraged to jump on their beds, warming themselves, before they crawled inside. You might sleep with your cousin or sister, your nose buried in the summer of their hair. You might place a baked potato in your blanket to help it remember warmth. A fire would be lit but, after awhile, it would smolder down to the bone silence of ash. Everything was cold: the basin where you washed your face, the wood floor, the windows where you watched your breath open over the framed blur of snow. Your hands and feet were cold and the trees were cold: naked, traced in ice. You might take a dog to bed or two or three, anything to lie down with life, feel it breathing nearby.

   Getting Through by Maxine Kumin I want to apologize for all the snow falling in this poem so early in the season. Falling on the calendar of bad news. Already we have had snow lucid, snow surprising, snow bees and lambswool snow. Already snows of exaltation have covered some scars. Larks and the likes of paisleys went up. But lately the sky is letting down large-print flakes of old age. Loving this poor place, wanting to stay on, we have endured an elegiac snow of whitest jade, subdued biographical snows and public storms, official and profuse. Even if the world is ending you can tell it's February by the architecture of the pastures. Snow falls on the pregnant mares, is followed by a thaw, and then refreezes so that everywhere their hill upheaves into a glass mountain. The horses skid, stiff-legged, correct position, break through the crust and stand around disconsolate lipping wisps of hay. Animals are said ...

Bus Driver by Jack Ridl Standing at the back door, waiting while the bus's engine hums against the dark cold, its exhaust a flume chilling into ice, melting the snow beneath it, Driver, hands in pockets, draws on his cigarette, exhales, and feels the mean language of age move in his bones. Behind him, in the losers' locker room, he knows his boys are dressing slowly, staring into mirrors, setting their wet hair straight, frowning at the way they have to look, trying to think of anything but the silent ride home. The snow, packed hard now in midwinter, squeaks under foot, and the air freezes in the lungs, burns like a tongue stuck to a frozen lamppost. Driver glances at the bus, WILSON PUBLIC SCHOOLS in black letters along its side, then up into the sky, clouds crossing the full moon's light like angels trying to comfort anyone against a loss. The players come out, pass him, step up into the bus, find their seats...

Exegesis by Paul Hostovsky We couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, sitting on that green bench in the late sixties or early seventies, me and Michael Zucker who was much more savvy and world-weary than I, when I asked him to please explain the meaning of the words to a song by Carly Simon, who was simply gorgeous—that much was plain—after we'd resolved the essential question of whether or not she was wearing a bra in that photo of her with the blue top and thick lips on her album cover. "I don't get it," I said. "'You're so vain. You probably think this song is about you.' But the song IS about him, isn't it?" I asked Zucker, holding my palm up in the air like one who is trying to ascertain the truth about whether or not it has started to rain. Zucker looked away then, gingerly fingering the green slats, as though he were reading the carved names of the lovers and obscenities tact...

Parole by Alan Brownjohn (i.m. I. H.) The lately dead still arrive in the corner of your eye Past the restaurant window, preparing slow smiles of pride At achieving their return. They know that without them You can never be the same, so they cheat for a while. They keep trying to work a parole to the usual places, They won't be excluded from them if you are there. Their fingers have pressed the latch and the door nearly opens, But then their smile turns embarrassed because they find It behaves like a turnstile: they think they have admission, But this door is fixed to prevent them coming back in. And you just can't help, at all; if you went out to greet them They would not be there, no one in the street would have seen them. Then slowly the corner of your eye Forgets to look.

please note: photo by Ray Yeager

Well, Super Bowl has come and gone. We are a family who rarely watches football, but we do enjoy that last match-up, especially since we have no dog in the fight. We choose loyalties out of the air. Well, I take that back. She-Who-Was-Formerly-Known as CollegeGrrrl/Blondie, but who has now passed her State Board exams and dyed her hair brown and is now officially an RN(!!!!)(NewRNGrrrl??), does watch sports and generally has a  sports-related reason for supporting a team was rooting for the NY Giants. HoneyHaired Grrrrl liked the Giants because her dormmate is from New Jersey and thus was rooting for a hometown favorite. I liked the Giants because my TV boyfriend, Jon Stewart, likes them and Hubby changes his mind mid-game for whoknowswhat reasoning. He does like an underdog. I missed half the game as I worked a "Princess Shift"---3pm-7:30pm---and got home to see the tail end of Madonna. If she can prance around with those heels on...