Barbie Puzzle

JeanineStevens

~100 Piece, ages 5-12, 1991 Mattel Toys.

The scene, a paint-by numbers back drop: loopy blue snowbanks, Kelly-green trees, gondolas in summery colors. Weak smoke rises from the cabin’s red chimney.

Upper left, it’s all Barbie, big hair, stylish togs, scarlet fur over her heart. If she’s at Heavenly Valley, tiny boots may head east to the bunny slope. If she keeps going, there Nevada’s Bunny Ranch.

Barbie is smiling, always smiling. Her skis pink, of course, cotton candy pink.

Jeanine Stevens is the author of No Lunch

Among the Day Stars (Cold River Press, 2022), and chapbooks, Ornate Persona (Clair Songbirds Press, 2022) and Tea in the Nun’s Liibrary, (Eyewear Publishing, UK, 2022). She is winner of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt and The Ekphrasis Prize. She is winner of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, WOMR Cape Cod Community Radio National Award, and The William Stafford Award. Jeanine has been published in Evansville Review, North Dakota Review, Chiron Review, Poets’ Espresso Review, and others. Jeanine is Professor Emerita at American River College in Sacramento.