ZAKARIAN 3

	By Beverly Honkonen


	What, might I ask,
	are the three?
		Cowardice
		Selfishness
		Immaturity
	Perhaps the three
	are her, you, and me. . . 
	the three that will
	forever haunt your dreams,
	like the Holy Trinity
	you gave up, as if
	nothing.
	You say she is your queen,
	with her wide nose, fat
	thighs, and ugly moustache.
	What about the princess
	you denied as your own?
	The little girl who will
	always be yours, no matter
	how hard you try to say no.
	The three, according to me, are
		Desire
		Obsession
		Need,
	the desperate necessity
	to make, no. . . to force,
	that fluttering flag 
	of red, blue, and orange
	scrawled upon your upper arm
	mean something, anything.
	The twisted itch to erase 
	half of yourself, 
	your
		kinder
	intelligent
	moral
	half, as if it never existed.
	You can run from yourself
	and who you once were,
	and truly still are inside,
	but you cannot escape from
	her.
	You can avoid me as well,
	but your princess will be there. . .
	 waiting for you . . .
	and one day you will have to explain it all to her,
	Zakarian 3,
	and then my day will have come.
	I will then have my three
		Peace
		Satisfaction
		Tranquility.


--
Beverly Honkonen recently discovered that her family name was
originally spelled Hankanian several generations ago, but was changed
when they immigrated to America from Russia. She is a high school
English teacher in a suburb outside of Cleveland, Ohio and a graduate
student at Cleveland State University, enrolled in the Master's of
English Literature Program.