A Tidings of Magpies

by Ellen Bass If this were the last day of my life, I wouldn't complain about the shower curtain rod in the wrong place, even though it's drilled into the tiles. Nor would I fret over water marks on the apricot satin finish paint, half sick that I should have used semigloss. No. I'd stand in the doorway watching sun glint off the chrome faucet, breathing in the silicone smell. I'd wonder at the plumber, as he adjusted the hot and cold water knobs. I'd stare at the creases behind his ears and the gray flecks in his stubble. I'd have to hold myself back from touching him. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'd stroke his cheek and study his eyes the amber of cellos, his rumpled brow, the tiny garnet threads of capillaries, his lips resting together, quiet as old friends— I'd gaze at him as though his were the first face I'd ever seen.

by Ted Kooser The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion whose flowers have faded, like those of summer, and a small brown spider has hung out her web on a line between porch post and chain so that no one may swing without breaking it. She is saying it's time that the swinging were done with, time that the creaking and pinging and popping that sang through the ceiling were past, time now for the soft vibrations of moths, the wasp tapping each board for an entrance, the cool dewdrops to brush from her work every morning, one world at a time.

"The weight of the afternoon sun already falls more lightly on my back than it did a few weeks ago. The days seem not only shorter but also somehow thinner too, and every morning that dawns above freezing feels like a morning won back from the inevitable. Nothing is dry yet, of course, but the promise of eventual dryness is in the air. A day will come when every crown of seeds will rattle on the weeds in ditches and fields, when leaves will crunch obligingly underfoot again." please note: excerpt from The Rural Life, September , by Verlyn Klinkenborg & art by Van Gogh

by Nancy Fitzgerald There is a moment just before a dog vomits when its stomach heaves dry, pumping what's deep inside the belly to the mouth. If you are fast you can grab her by the collar and shove her out the door, avoid the slimy bile, hunks of half chewed food from landing on the floor. You must be quick, decisive, controlled, and if you miss the cue and the dog erupts en route, you must forgive her quickly and give yourself to scrubbing up the mess. Most of what I have learned in life leads back to this. please note: photo by Sheri Van Wert

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar I hate Mozart. Hate him with that healthy pleasure one feels when exasperation has crescendoed, when lungs, heart, throat, and voice explode at once: I hate that! — there's bliss in this, rapture. My shrink tried to disabuse me, convinced I use Amadeus as a prop: Think further, your father perhaps? I won't go back, think of the shrink with a powdered wig, pinched lips, mole: a transference, he'd say, a relapse: so be it. I hate broccoli, chain saws, patchouli, bra— clasps that draw dents in your back, roadblocks, men in black kneesocks, sandals and shorts— I love hating that. Loathe stickers on tomatoes, jerky, deconstruction, nazis, doilies. I delight in detesting. And love loving so much after that.

by Dana Gioia Now you hear what the house has to say. Pipes clanking, water running in the dark, the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort, and voices mounting in an endless drone of small complaints like the sounds of a family that year by year you've learned how to ignore. But now you must listen to the things you own, all that you've worked for these past years, the murmur of property, of things in disrepair, the moving parts about to come undone, and twisting in the sheets remember all the faces you could not bring yourself to love. How many voices have escaped you until now, the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot, the steady accusations of the clock numbering the minutes no one will mark. The terrible clarity this moment brings, the useless insight, the unbroken dark. please note: photo by Carol Sills And...Neuro lecture--8 hours--this Monday. Almost finished with working on it. Oh, happy day!

by Ted Kooser I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half, maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread, no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place, and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner, observing his progress through glasses that moments before he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring, and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon, her knife and her fork in their proper places, then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.