BY JENNA CARDINALE
Summer Manual
It’s too hot to touch
another body or even
your skin
to your own skin.
But the two of you
are touching and proving all
that my other mentioned.
This suggestion of affection.
The correct buttons selected
on the lightning machine.
I don’t know about the science
of sparks or slow
burns. Those alarms.
This work is weather.
The sky after a shower.
The trembling storm.
What Isn't Even or Delicate or Too Far Out
Last Sunday, this ocean
was spitting sea grasses
toward the shore, sliding
small creatures inside
your swimsuit.
This week, the waves
are rolling smoothly
over the rippled sandbar.
Tiny fish are following
and new, white crabs are grasping.
The water is clear
and I can see them.
We agree it’s easy to forget
who’s in charge.
The tide governs
without debate or concern.
Doesn’t it make time.
We have developed bodies
that can save someone
from almost anything.
That has a rhythm. A pull.
Don’t use all your strength
to fight it.
A Scene
A spot-lit white
dress. Cinched
dunes.
A clicking
pace on
an empty stage.
The woman pacing.
The wind-up
doll. All
the blinks.
I write all over
myself in the dark.
A tired ghost
with my glasses off.
After a performance of “Beckett plays (Not I,” “Footfalls,” and “Rockaby”) at the Brooklyn Academy of Musicin October, 2014.
Just Before We Start Dancing
Get on the floor
and take everything
out of your bag.
Put it on
the floor. Turn over
everything twice.
Find two
tickets in between two
pages and you two
can drink two
drinks included in the slight price
of admission.
Writing in a Tone that Is Not Your Own
You notice that the pen you’re using to write is not an easy pen with which to write. Maybe it’s the flow. Or something about the grip is off. So you look at the pen. It is thin. Silver, black, then tipped with silver. "Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts." You think, "How fancy," then remember that this is your pen. You took it from a Four Season hotel. It wasn’t as decadent as the appearance of the pen might suggest. Or maybe it was fancy for the Midwest. Because you were in the St. Louis Four Seasons hotel and St. Louis is different from where you’re from. This is why you were staying in a hotel, after all. But there was a rainfall shower. And the TV appeared in the corner of the bathroom mirror. Was the toilet seat heated? Maybe you don’t understand decadence. Did you touch it all?
The too-soft bed.
That ink catching on the sweet note you wrote to the lady in Housekeeping.
Jenna Cardinale's poems have most recently appeared in Handsy, Wicked Alice, and The Incredible Sestina Anthology. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she co-curates the mostly-monthly poetry series Readings in Color.