"Energetic, fast-paced, rich in strong, sensuous images, JoAnna Novak's Something Real is both wistful and tough, emotionally charged, and softened by a touch of humor--a pleasure to read."

-Lydia Davis

JoAnna Novak is the recepient of a BA from Knox College and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems, stories, and reviews have appeared in many journals. Currently, she studies poetry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is co-founder and editor of the journal Tammy.

from Something Real

We’ve got this bad habit of losing ourselves in the bedroom for hours at a time, stippling sunny scenes of parasol-people parading across our stomachs with smelly markers. We’re into these things seeping into our skin. When we roll around, we smear the sheets magenta and turquoise. This is an afternoon of candy and cake. In other words, afterwards, we get stoned and watch snakes have at it on the big screen mounted on the wall like easy art. Are you eating? he asks me. I’ve got a few tubes of Smarties sorted by color on a white saucer on the bedside table. He’s drinking Grey Goose and Gatorade through a Twizzler. It doesn’t look right, I say, when the diamondback unhinges its jaw. Lifting my ponytail up like a thought-bubble (Aha! Oooh baby! Oh yeah!), he asks me, How do you feel?