The psychic gets the date wrong, a day ahead,
but she dabbles in the future. I forgive her.
She puzzles over chickens she envisions
crowding around my feet.

Do you raise chickens? Paint them?
No.

We move on.
She senses I’m in a serene place.
My husband’s faltering heart has stabilized.
The dead ex finally concedes I was right.
Our grown son will flop around for a while.
Let him.

But what about those chickens?

Maybe it all comes down to chicken scratches,
like sketches and poems etched on paper
that try to divine something mystical
out of the perfectly ordinary.

— Mary Kolada Scott

(won first prize, Ventura County Writers Club 2005 poetry contest)

Recent Publications:

Quilts are Forever (Simon & Schuster, 2002)
We Used To Be Wives (Fithian Press, 2002)
Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge (Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2003)
House Blessings: Prayers, Poems & Toasts Celebrating Home & Family (Cotner Ink, 2004)
For This I Am Grateful (Everyday Wisdom Press, 2004) The Art of Bicycling (Breakaway Books, 2005)