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Poem by Jenna Cardinale

Eyewear is pleased to welcome Jenna Cardinale (pictured) to its Friday Feature.

Cardinale is the author of Journals (Whole Coconut, 2006). Her sonnets have appeared in Court Green, Blue Mesa Review, Coconut and Dusie, among other journals.

She lives in New York, where she teaches poetry writing at Lehman College and Explorations Academy, an experimental public high school.


She's Only Willing to Remember the War on Her Birthday


I am going on cleaning the weeds
off the terrace
so when the American army gets here
it can sit and then cough comfortably
on it. They will be tan,
the fatigues,
or another shade of tired.

Must we wear ribbons, glue
our thick brown blood
to wallpaper.

Will a baby
be sired
as part of the decorations.

Soft mud over old
mud is preferred.
I'll see it coming
in the house,
down the hall. It's like a city
on a hill that can't hide.
Sit, I'll say and call him by
a name like Mike.

Now I hang tarps of washed love
that are not flags
and bury the fruits
which will soon rot.

poem by Jenna Cardinale
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