The Burning Bush 2, issue six, February 2014
Erin Fornoff Facepainting Her mother says maybe she could be a princess today, and I knock cloudy water off a brush and anchor her tiny chin with the pad of my thumb. The boys all want to be lions or pirates, predators and criminals-but she is my fifth princess of the morning. She disregards my thumb To ask what she’ll look like-we say so beautiful. I shellack her perfect face in white daub pink hearts on cheeks, dot a cupid bow mouth in red, arched flirting brows and over it all lashings of Las Vegas glitter. Sitting this still for this long is almost unendurable torture She’s as happy to be free as she is to sight the gaudy stranger where her face should be. She looks at us to tell her we love it. Her father shoots me a look I can’t quite meet. I’ve tarted up his three year old like a truck stop hooker and I wish I had skipped the Geisha routine and gone straight for the warpaint and slicked it thick, the kind that doesn’t smear with fast-melting ice cream or an arm wiped across a runny nose. She asks how she looks. We say so beautiful. I want to say honey A princess looks however they tell her. A native of the Appalachian mountains of N. Carolina, Erin Fornoff now lives in Dublin. Her work has appeared in Wordlegs, The Irish Times, Bare Hands, and The Cellar Door. She regularly performs at spoken word events and festivals around the country.
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