Megan Foley

Pinking

I get my mother’s pair of pinking shears. They’re chrome plated. Weighty. Old. There’s no date on them, just a patent number stamped into the side. The original manual is still there, a little accordion of waxy paper tucked in the bottom of the cardboard box. There is no date printed there either, but the corners have gone brown with age. It suggests things to make: napkins, dish towels, dust cloths. “To supplement your supply of emergency handkerchiefs,” it says, “pink soft linens in squares.” Now, I don’t have a supply of handkerchiefs, emergency or otherwise. I have no soft linens to pink—though I am delighted by pink as a verb. The shears themselves look like crafting scissors ate a sawfish. Like the silver skull of an animal that doesn’t exist. Mouth lined with zigzag teeth, ready to chew through any fabric I could feed it. We are both hungry for a new project.