Lip Liner to Hillary
Rent from DeepDyve- Lip Liner to Hillary
I'm worried sick you'll ditch me. Rumor isSarah Palin's lips always look plumpbecause her liner's tattooed, counterfeit.She wakes up with zigzag hair, bad breath, a grump,and fuchsia-outlined lips ready for prom.I hear her trick saved time at campaign stops;unlike your fifteen-minute drill—lip balm,lip primer, me, lipstick, gloss, cotton swabsto even my line—she was done in fiveand flashing a calm smile beside McCain.But hear my case for keeping me alive—you shower and my dye slinks down the drainalong with peach powder, mascara wax;bare-faced, you know what's you and what's a mask. [End Page 33]
Marianne Kunkel is the author of The Laughing Game (Finishing Line Press) as well as poems that have appeared in the Missouri Review, the Notre Dame Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Rattle, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of creative writing and publishing at Missouri Western State University and editor-in-chief of the university's literary journal, the Mochila Review. This poem appears in her forthcoming book of poetry Hillary, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State University Press).
