As accurate now as it was when it first appeared in Tin House Issue 33: Fantastic Women.
Aries—A harsh wind blows on the ram this year and heavy wool socks are strongly recommended. Hot potatoes work well too, and yelling at your delinquent daughters, who will pierce their tongues after the first Virgo moon.
Taurus—Get a tape recorder and repeat after me: The snap pea habit has got to stop. A rotten pod has your name on it, Taurus, and three tiny round fuckers are laughing it up.
Gemini—Two pairs of hands and you can’t do a fan dance? Frankly, I have no advice. You might have bathed babies, painted holiday eggs, but instead you leap naked and never touch.
Cancer—Let’s face it, Crusty, we never got along. You were always so complacent about all those visitors. Especially Alma. Guess your own future.
Leo—Shake your fulgent mane, for this year you’ll find love. Or at least good lighting for the long hall, the one you papered so carefully last summer. Italian jellyleaf, a fakir’s green.
Virgo—For far too long you’ve acted like a dryad, mossing your titties, diving into brooks. The sylvan life ends this year, Virgo. When the mists start rising, you’ll see your own feet.
Libra—You will like your short new wife. She will make you stew. She will plump her little bowl of a bottom in the pot-shaped seat of your rocking chair.
Scorpio—You’re not so bad. You’re not even that ugly; you just need different hair. Go to Charcot Street and ask for Clemm.
Sagittarius—Stop shooting cans. Stop shooting bottle caps. Stop shooting rats. I can’t believe you’ve named that stupid blue pistol. Throw it away and have a baby.
Capricorn—Enough with the herring. You’re a goat, for God’s sake, and it’s time to eat trash. When Pisces enters the second house, you’ll nip a piece of ass with sequins on it.
Aquarius—All you needed was a kiss, you said. You will need a year to wash it off.
Pisces—The pins are in a jar. The jar is in the drawer with the trim and missing socks. You will use the pins to make a six-yard sampler, roses and squares, alpaca wool. For your son’s funeral. You’ll wrap him in it twice.
Jane Avrich is the author of The Winter Without Milk, a collection of short stories. Her stories have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Story, and other journals and have been nominated for The Best American Short Stories. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Born and raised in New York, she received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and her master’s from Columbia. A teacher for thirteen years, she currently teaches English at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn and lives in Manhattan.