Month: June 2021

Grill

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am cooking on the half-broken grill– knobs
stuck, burner busted– you left when you moved

out. This rack of ribs burning on foil– that’s you.
You and I are through. Perhaps not; I’m famous

(in my mind) for my inability to settle a squabble,
however small, how I raise the temperature until

the whole meal’s scorched in this final summer
on the heat. The charcoal smoke remains nostalgic

in the atmosphere but this pig is dead, has been,
and the house hasn’t felt the same for months,

weeds crawling around the wooden baseboard,
the dishwasher sobbing in the clutter of its mess.

I am throwing everything I own into black bags
to be disposed of Thursday, on the precipice

of a move, how much grease I’ve scraped from this
squealing machine, all this hunger turned to waste.

(originally published in Juke Joint, Winter 2019)

Another Drunken Summer

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Last summer, clunks of glass,
grapefruit juice across the veiled
table. We stayed drunk

through sweltering June, to cool
off with Bella Sera pinot grigio,
Tostitos, queso. How much is

too much pleasure? These half-
empty days of water we are
not eager to drink. Sit in shade

til sundown, table umbrella up
to block the cancer sun we
know. We know.

(originally published in Kissing Dynamite, Spring 2018)

McDonald’s Delivery

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

voila! magic! mcnuggets
at the front door a knock-
knock and bag grab
now alone at the edge
of the long kitchen table
the a/c roars on lukewarm
meat between my teeth

*

voila! magic! blood struggles through
breathing’s become an hourglass
my girlfriend says her dad had a heart
attack at thirty then gave up meat
I press a button the heater burns on

(originally published in Hamline Lit Link, Winter 2019)

A.S.

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You still haunt my longing;
the lantern never was yet
burned louder some years
than others– certain days,

you were a faraway dream–
facing the tide, your black
hair and literature. The Pacific,
the Atlantic, the frozen

December we met again,
you said you were unstable–
ice drove us down dark streets,
engine idle in the middle of a lot.

It takes knowing how your face moves,
intimate and drunk in negative light,
our immovable stone eroding
in the wind of time.

 

(originally published in Clackamas, Spring 2019)

Remnants

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You don’t hold me tight so I know you want to go.

You already let go of alcohol, caffeine, Dexter after the tumor.

My mother told me, after my father died, she would never love another man.

When she loved another man, she refused to let him die beside her.

Now he leaves her rain-soaked voicemails from Italy.

She drives to Cleveland, Kentucky, Ann Arbor, to avoid the thought of him.

Lost loves are remnants of embers but that’s it.

When I was with Amy, she drank coffee and I did not.

The mornings, now, I caffeinate myself a buzzing lantern.

Who sleeps that well anymore?

Sara tells me one of her exes nightly swallowed eight Benadryls to sleep.

Pink pills stack inside us in our battles against sleeping alone.

I have a soft blue blanket and a queen-sized bed.

When a day leaves don’t ask me to differentiate between darkness and dream.

 

(originally published in I-70 Review, Fall 2019)

Beach

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

same as spit
on a band room floor
poolside

without knowing   we are all
skeletons
holding information too

great to actually understand
trombone blaring
mouths into the sea

flute-marching
to conformity’s beat
suntan lotion and absurdism

smother meaningless philosophies all
over your skin   and block out the rest

 

(originally published in Ghost City Review, Winter 2019)

Grief Poetry

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The summer shattered the year
Dad passed, and Mom’s grief
became the fall; to cope, she
wrote her first poetry, wrote
sheets of ice that turned to
winter months of seeking
meaning in icicles– living
alone, she praised the blades of
cold above her door, believing
Dad her angel sharp enough to
pierce the heart of loneliness.
There was no Thanksgiving
that year, no Christmas.
The frigid core of family–
she kept writing our story.
She would not let us forget.

 

(originally published in Z Publishing’s “America’s Emerging Poets Series: Midwest Edition,” 2018)