Jennifer Franklin
Cassandra Is Jealous of Her Dog
She knows nothing
of the future and lives
unfettered in the present.
She looks out to the salt marsh
in constant wonder
watching the ducks
fighting on the water—
flapping their wings
as the others call to them downstream.
She sits next to the plovers’ nest
unknowing when they will fledge
or that they are in danger.
She rests in the sun, her ears
pointed to the sky
always ready to hear a command,
praise, birdsong from the trees.
Jennifer Franklin reads “Cassandra Is Jealous of Her Dog”
Jennifer Franklin has published three full-length collections, most recently, If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Books, 2023). With Nicole Callihan and Pichchenda Bao, she is co-editing the anthology Braving the Body (Harbor Editions, 2024). In 2021, she received both a Cafe Royal Foundation Grant in Literature and a NYFA/City Artist Corps Grant in Poetry. Her work has been published widely in anthologies, print publications, and online including in American Poetry Review, The Nation, The Paris Review, Poetry Society’s “Poetry in Motion,” and Prairie Schooner. Diane Seuss chose one of Franklin’s poems for The Academy of American Poets “Poem-a-Day” series in March 2023. She holds an AB from Brown University and an MFA from Columbia University where she was the Harvey Baker Fellow. For the past ten years, she has taught manuscript revision at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, where she runs the reading series and serves as Program Director. She also teaches craft workshops in Manhattanville’s MFA program and 24 Pearl Street of Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.