Attack of the Killer Tomorrow by Tina Garvin

Tomorrow hangs, like an irresistible piece of skin from the roof my mouth.

I’ve shuffled all around it, flicking it with my tongue as I type, and yet it still it hangs there.

It is midday in the plaza, where Monica — the flea market fortune-teller — said I should be, at this time, on this day, to discover my true life’s purpose. In the plaza, I wait. My eyes trace treetops bit eaten by an unseen plaque of feeders. A memory stares up at me from the bottom of a well. A clique of faces — coming from work, or school, or camp — toss pennies down my throat, pennies better spent in fountains. I watch my arm in the sun, a sleeve of connect the dots, then my cellphone rings: “Let me tell you how we can save you hundreds of dollars on your health insurance premium this year. . .”

Blinking, I see the negative image of my arm’s particular patterning. My purpose a no-show, I begin smartphone web browsing my Rentflix movie list to decide whether I will watch a documentary on hot coffee or a cerebral dark comedy action thriller. Women pass me by, bodice rippers uploaded to e-readers and stowed in the handbags of middle-aged Haus Frauen do not a romance make.

With every forgiven slight, we  lose the bravery of our shape. My consciousness outwardly directed and ears pinned to the sides of my ghost head listening, I catch a blurb, a blog, a sneeze.

At around midnight, I leave for home, armed with my trusty Taser gun and a full bladder. Ready.

© 2014 Tina Garvin

Tina Garvin lives and writes in Chicago.Currently she is completing her BFA at the Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago. Her poems have most recently been published in Crack the Spine Literary Journal and Shoe Music Press.

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