A Tidings of Magpies

by Jane Kenyon From here I see a single red cloud impaled on the Town Hall weather vane. Now the horses are back in their stalls, and the dogs are nowhere in sight that made them run and buck in the brittle morning light. You laughed only once all day-- when the cat ate cucumbers in Chekhov's story...and now you smoke and pace the long hallway downstairs. The cook is roasting meat for the evening meal, and the smell rises to all the rooms. Red-faced skiers stamp past you on their way in; their hunger is Homeric. I know you are thinking of the accident-- of picking the slivered glass from his hair. Just now a truck loaded with hay stopped at the village store to get gas. I wish you would look at the hay-- the beautiful sane and solid bales of hay.

by Sharon Olds I've said that he and I had been crazy for each other, but maybe my ex and I were not crazy for each other. Maybe we were sane for each other, as if our desire was almost not even personal— it was personal, but that hardly mattered, since there seemed to be no other woman or man in the world. Maybe it was an arranged marriage, air and water and earth had planned us for each other—and fire, a fire of pleasure like a violence of kindness. To enter those vaults together, like a solemn or laughing couple in formal step or writhing hair and cry, seemed to me like the earth's and moon's paths, inevitable, and even, in a way, shy—enclosed in a shyness together, equal in it. But maybe I was crazy about him—it is true that I saw that light around his head when I'd arrive second at a restaurant—oh for God's sake, I was besotted with him. Meanwhile the planets orbited each other, the morning and the evening c...

I had stopped watching ER a few years ago when every show promised to be the MOST SPECTACULAR EVENT ON TELEVISION. When I heard that the show was ending I wanted to see the finale for old times sake. Like seeing the staff of M.A.S.H. being discharged and sent stateside. And, if all the truth be told, I had to watch my man, George. Watching that storyline quickly reminded me why I stopped watching. A young boy on a bike hit by a car and now determined to be braindead? Comforting the family and talking about their options, knowing that the Life Center Donor Network staff is awaiting word in the next room? It all hits way too close to home. Hubby works in an ER, he didn't wish to extend his workday any longer than the 12 hours he'd already spent there and I had no need to cry for an entire hour. Scrubs is possibly the most accurate of all the hospital shows in that it truly captures the essence of hospital care and politics. ER, however, depicted the everyday chaos, absurdity...