Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2022
Confidence Girl Joe Gianotti You swipe your hair backward and forward, pull your necklace from skin to shirt as you perform Billie Eilish into your phone. You hold an invisible mic to your beaming mouth, and expand your lungs from the diaphragm and sing soul into poetry. Your dazed sun-soaked eyes a part of the vocal ensemble, a crescendo that forces you to pump your fist and spread your fingers. You bring them down against yourself as Billie changes tempos, weapons to wield against those who ruined everything good. Your stage now a litter box, constriction, singing over conversations, but the Metro awaits. Throngs will push in as you belt the high note and make all the moments your own. Joe Gianotti has taught English at Lowell High School in Northwest Indiana for twenty-five years. He is from Whiting, a small, blue collar, industrial town just outside Chicago. He studied English, history, and education at the University of Indianapolis and Purdue University. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in This, Literary Magazine, The Chaffey Review, Steam Ticket, The Tipton Poetry Journal, and other places, as well as collected in the second volume of This is Poetry: The Midwest Poets.
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