Summer 2023 | Poetry

Tova Gannana

The End

I’m a blonde with long legs, I’m oblivion, I’m an echo, I’m death to conversation, I’m a returnee, I’m reminded of something, I’m one in every room, I’m nobody here knows anymore, I’m one lump or two, I’m new words to represent ideas, I’m when I’m with you I’m not afraid, I’m a dictionary not a bible, I’m lying, I’m enemy ears, I’m snow on a fur coat, I’m impulsive, I interrupt, I’m all Pepsi, I smoke the modern way, I crowd my luck, I pickle my head, I chase kites, I came here to talk, I sit at home eating beans, I swing with both hands, I don’t send postcards, I judge distance, I’m a couple of years ahead of myself, I’m awfully quiet, I’m in a racket, I don’t bruise, I’m my favorite topic, I have a tendency, I’m what the newspaper calls despondent, I leave fingerprints on glasses, I'm acrobatic, I have cases, I'm an agent, I could be in danger, there is myself I never suspected, my house I put under surveillance, I’m happy to have a chance, I hit fair and hard, I’m a narcotic, I’m a body, I’m a professional informer, I’m no dice, I’m like punching a feather, I’m a teletype, I’m an ordinary gang, I notice what’s funny, I’m a clean sample, I speak to you as a capitalist, I’m a slave to probability, I’m a level-three seductress, I obey the orders of logic, I accompany strangers, I register to vote, I walk through Brooklyn to get to Chicago, I use my own shadow, in the future no one will live with memory.

Tova Gannana is a waitress in Boston. @tovagannana

Tova recommends three films:

Amateur (1994) by Hal Hartley. The dialogue sounds like a dialect, almost "Mamet Speak." It's a very funny film but in a deadpan way. Like if His Girl Friday was a thriller.  

Fleshtone (1994) by Harry Hurwitz. The main character has an underbite and a naivete that is both endearing and questionable. The film is all bones and feels like a postcard bought at a gas station way out in the West. 

Criminal Passion (1994) by Donna Deitch. Melanie Hudson, an LA police officer, has a big triangular haircut and is always in a suit. She is Linda Evangelista on the beat. Hudson has an appetite for men and crime, and only one of those topics she's interested in solving. 

Previous
Previous

Starr Davis - poetry

Next
Next

Joe Hall - poetry