Princess Barbie by Lindsey Martin-Bowen (WEARING A MASK Series)

Princess Barbie
by Lindsey Martin-Bowen

Yes, that’s me, masquerading
once more as Barbie.
Running fingers over a velvet,
cobalt-blue bodice, I’m the Prom
Queen I never was in high school.
My mask appears invisible—
not silk or cotton—yet it covers
skin less than creamy,
blushed & smooth.

I arch my back & balance a tiara
on thick, blonde hair, complements
of Clairol. Revlon & Estee Lauder
now masque my face & make mirrors
reflect Barbie. They send my mind
to Au Petit Marché, where I bite
into a Napoleon, sip café au lait.

Sometimes, I wear Ralph Lauren,
fly first class, and imagine
I’m some undiscovered celeb.
Shedding pain that slides away
like scales, I’m free to wander
along a French shoreline
& watch a fading red sun glide
across a calm sea.

PAINTING: “Barbie” by Andy Warhol (1986). Prints available at allposters.com.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:  For the “Wearing a Mask” Series, I first tried to write about my struggles finding a mask that allowed me to breathe. (Allergies forced me to use a variety of scarves.) Yet the editor’s suggestion about the various masks we don urged me to write about one of my metaphysical (ontology) masks: Barbie. As young girls, we bought and sewed wardrobes for this fashion model whose figure (were she a live human) would likely cause her to fall on her face. Nevertheless, Barbie’s large blue eyes and broad smile haunted me as an image of beauty during my early years — and indeed, influenced my makeup mask. This is a photo of me as Princess Barbie, when I gave a poetry reading at Kansas City’s Neon Gallery on Halloween.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s fourth poetry collection, Where Water Meets the Rock (39 West Press 2017), contains a poem named an Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest’s 85th Contest. Her third, CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison, won Kansas Authors Club’s 2017 “Looks Like a Million” Contest, and was a finalist in the QuillsEdge Press 2015-2016 Contest. Her Inside Virgil’s Garage (Chatter House) was a runner-up in the 2015 Nelson Poetry Book Award. McClatchy Newspapers named her Standing on the Edge of the World  (Woodley Press) one of Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. Her poems have appeared in New Letters, I-70 Review, Thorny Locust, Flint Hills Review, Silver Birch Press, Amethyst Arsenic, Coal City Review, Phantom Drift, Ekphrastic Review (Egyptian Challenge), The Same, Tittynope Zine, Bare Root Review Rockhurst Review, 12 anthologies, and other lit zines. Three of her seven novels have been published. Poetry is her way of singing. She taught writing and literature at UMKC for 18 years, MCC-Longview, and teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and other criminal justice classes for Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, Oregon. Visit her on Facebook.