Friday, August 26, 2022: Christal Ann Rice Cooper's "Visible"

“There are advantages to being a star though – you can always get a table in a full restaurant.

-Ingrid Bergman

She walked into the restaurant

head held up high

until she saw the piano

and the man sitting at the piano.

 

She dreaded As Time Goes By 

but too shy to ask for it

not to be played.

Now she walks slowly,

trying to blend in with the blonde wallpaper,

hide behind the lily plants, turn herself into a shadow

beneath the candles aglow

Or maybe it wasn’t the piano she feared

but the Americans there

who took away her Hollywood virtue

She drank an American Movie Martini Twisted with Sour lemons for nine years, 

No longer Joan of Arc,

then slut shaming

No longer a nun,

but "a horrible example of womanhood and a powerful influence for evil." 

No longer an American citizen,

now persona non grata.

 

Now no longer herself,

but Anastacia, 

 

the only way to hide,

making the person you are not

visible. 

© 2022 Christal Ann Rice Cooper

Christal Ann Rice Cooper is a newspaper writer, feature stories writer, poet, fiction writer, photographer, and painter. She has a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and completed all of her poetry and fiction workshops required for her Master’s in Creative Writing with a focus on poetry. She maintains a website at http://chrisricecooper.com.   She, her husband Wayne, sons Nicholas and Caleb, cats Nation and Alaska reside in the St. Louis area.