how to fix a broken zipper: if the slider falls off don’t panic, slip it in your pocket until you can find a pay phone, internet café, post office, make a xerox and hide it in your money belt with your broken currencies and american dollars, find an airport and get on a plane, one way,

how to fix a missing button: if the airport’s too far, find the train station and all aboard, feel the slide of metal under your spine as you try to sleep plugged into someone singing about the trans-canada and soon you’re tracing foreign footsteps through the dark ukrainian flatlands, imagine the rich earth, blood and bone and so much overturned sod, pretend you know something about love, about dialing phones, about words that make things happen, make a list in your notebook, alphabetical, of all the things you’ve ever broken, find a length of thread in your pocket and sew up all the buttonholes on your sweater, pull your coat around your chest cold and imagine kyiv as an answer,

how to fix a hangnail: sometimes the bus is the only option, make sure you get a window seat so you can play at recognizing shapes through the caked on dust and dirt, accept anything offered—tangerines, red and silver wrapped chocolates, a wet mouthed bottle of vodka—cram your sweater into the space between your seat and the growling frame, knit your bones together and pick at the rough edge on your thumbnail until blood wells up,