Jenna Cardinale writes poems. Some of them appear in Verse Daily, Pith, The Fem, and H_NGM_N. Her latest chapbook, A California, will be published by Dancing Girl Press in 2017. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

At Least this Music

I’ve filled out
my entire
form.

/

What about decor. And how
does light work. The shadows of
the lamps. Static skeet.

/

In the shadows some of the people are small.

/

I’m not great at holding
up this heavy conversation.

This body. A gun.

/

Listen for the violence
of bow to curve.

Shark Eye, February

The way we walk on
ice.

I am an American, but
I still only find empty
shells on the beach
between the edge of ocean
and an auto-lit development.

The way we remember snow.
                What it covers.

There are fewer shootings after
summer.

Everyone is well-read and understands danger.

Then a tiny predator

                (that’s what we call it)

falls out. Dried out. Dead.