Mary Ann Honaker
Mary Ann Honaker is the author of It Will Happen Like This (YesNo Press, 2015) and Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019). Her work has appeared in 2 Bridges, Drunk Monkeys, Euphony, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Off the Coast, Van Gogh’s Ear, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Mary Ann holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia. https://maryannhonaker.wordpress.com/
Zipper Pull
When you came into the breakroom at work
just long enough to complain
how you didn’t have time to make a coffee,
then dashed back to your cubicle,
leaving behind a familiar jangle
of homemade jewelry, leather
and cigarette smell, my first instinct
was to leap up and make it for you.
To rescue you. Again. Like I did
for years, writing checks, fielding
calls from debt collectors while you fumed
and spat and swore in the background,
making meals, making you eat,
making appointments and reminding you
to go to them. But I said no,
that’s done, I don’t do that anymore,
you are not my responsibility.
Later you came in again and inquired
about my leather jacket, your leather jacket,
last gift your late grandmother gave,
and I said I’d broken the zipper pull again.
At once you rushed out, wordless, sighing,
returned with wire and pliers and set to work,
grumbling to yourself no doubt about
how I always need rescuing, unable
to fix my jacket, my jewelry, my computer,
unable to unzip my dress on my own,
and what does it say about you and I
that I, stingy soul, fought the urge
to return to this mutuality, while you
calmly twisted new copper wires
into a shiny new zipper pull?
Sheila-Na-Gig online 