Zippers

Zippers · Dennis Saleh "Zipper," a favored word in children's dictionaries, the first engine of the child, a toy mouth or alligator. Open the closet, the zipper at home, perhaps asleep in the tucks and recesses, an old forgotten secret. They drape over the hangers like jungle tendrils, little clinging vines in the blossoms of clothing. Or uprooted, a flower itself a single petal. Each a smile hanging, wan, content, nothing to do. Each a little skeleton like a mounted trophy—fish. They slip in the sea of hands, open, close, taut, free. Each is like a trail, something left behind, something gone. Who could say male or female. Zipper says hello goodbye. The invitation, the signalling, done like a pennant. 34 · The Missouri Review Signature of the exhibitionist, of the policeman. The Nazis made a perfect fetish to the zipper that the motorcycle jacket honors still in flashing hierarchies of zippers like scissors. There's no denying also like a snake, or a whisper, a thin insinuation or muffled snigger at things. But the lowly zipper is bashful, backward, retiring. It is an old, old, friend, more trustworthy than a dog. I have my first zipper still, a collection of zippers. Chains and centipedes of them like bracelets of a mad woman. They hang and comb the air, cool, deliberate, a musical score. They play the great melody of unity, joining "two sides to every thing." Dennis Saleh The Missouri Review · 35 Each a spirit of compromise as grand as Nature's. A zipper factory is all agreement, the two halves of the factory clasp. The zipper is a great teacher, it says a word and unsays it. 36 · The Missouri Review Dennis Saleh ...