The once-nubile starlet sips her second cocktail. Stylists flit about her like a flock of sparrows around a desiccated crust of bread. As makeup artists brush hues of youth across her cheeks, lips, and lashes, they dissemble, pretending their make-up magic, lipstick-tube talismans, and mascara-wand wizardry, will turn back time.

Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit her Mercy University Faculty page and her website, Wendy Mages: Storyteller.