For Want of a Needle and Thread

by Sarah Sarai

What’s the point, Ma’am, you protest. To which I respond, Why do you call me “Ma’am?” Have we time traveled to a Woolworths’ notions counter, back when the world offered a focal point, a tried, true, ready-for-action center of implements of the necessary and perhaps homely, but vital crafts, to wit, mending a hem, or sewing a button to the blouse with which it felt mighty comradeship? I offer an instance of same, focused, as I am, on my intent to protect this woman’s bosoms from the stray or, as likely, quite directed and probably fascinated, even fervid espying by an interested shopper of any of the slippery genders. Alas my purpose here has fallen by the wayside, side-by-side with Woolworths, abandoned by progress, which should be convicted of its eons of abandonment. And so my alluring bosoms are exposed, for want of a needle and thread.

6S

Sarah Sarai's poems, stories, and flash appear in Big City Lit, Okay Donkey, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Southampton Review, and many other journals. Her collections include That Strapless Bra in Heaven (Kelsay Books), Geographies of Soul and Taffeta (Indolent Books), and The Future Is Happy (BlazeVOX[books]). Sarai holds an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and works as an independent editor in New York City.