A Tidings of Magpies

After a Noisy Night by Laure-Anne Bosselaar The man I love enters the kitchen with a groan, he just woke up, his hair a Rorschach test. A minty kiss, a hand on my neck, coffee, two percent milk, microwave. He collapses on a chair, stunned with sleep, yawns, groans again, complains about his dry sinuses and crusted nose. I want to tell him how much he slept, how well, the cacophony of his snoring pumping in long wheezes and throttles—the debacle of rhythm—hours erratic with staccato of pants and puffs, crescendi of gulps, chokes, pectoral sputters and spits. But the microwave goes ding! A short little ding! – sharp as a guillotine—loud enough to stop my words from killing the moment. And during the few seconds it takes the man I love to open the microwave, stir, sip and sit there staring at his mug, I remember the vows I made to my pillows, to fate and God: I'll stop eating licorice, become a blonde, a lumberjack, a Catholic, anything,...