in the coffee shop
you tuck a bundle
of lavender
into the v
of your shirt,
aim it at your nose
then type furious
emails to co-workers
gently
gently
(originally published in Crack the Spine, Fall 2018)
anxiety
Flowers
The most confident people I know
walk into a room and flowers bloom
from their mouths and somehow it’s not weird.
I have never been that kind of social chameleon.
In public speaking class I spoke until vines
wrapped around my neck and I coughed and
choked until I sat down. I am a little better
since then but it’s arrogant to believe I’ve snipped
this looming, twisting stem. I’m trying to be
better around strangers but I recently walked
into a public garden and a petunia tapped
me on the shoulder and said my name
and tapped me and said my name again
and when I finally looked it took
awhile for the petals to disappear
from her face to see it was a friend.
(originally published in *82 Review, Summer 2018)
North Carolina Wedding
I don’t know anyone
but the gnats swarming
around me &
the stranger
next to me calls them
wedding bugs
marriage begins with wings
then seeks blood
sucking glimpse of sweat
on skin sugar all the single
guests swat at the air
around them familiar
the way we complain
of heat so beg
for rain to form in
these shrouds of clouds
to cool us down
it’s nice to have something
tangible to wish for
(originally published in Razor Literary Magazine, Spring 2018)
The Uncertainty Principle
Quantum physics have never been
more real than in this steaming
silver pot of Annie’s shells
and cheddar butter and milk
I’m cooking and the cat in our house
attacks crumpled-up balls
of paper yet sprints in fear
when a toilet is flushed. We are
all in orbit. You and me and
Earth and spoon in pot
mixing components into
tornado and I don’t know
where the melting butter
ends up nor the cheese
or where I’ll be in ten
years or a thousand
because our atoms
can diverge into
two paths any given
moment
THE FIRST PATH
the one where you and I and most our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love has died
it’s my father I see dandelions on the dead a suit and tie something
he never would have worn & your mother her silky dress and
Avon perfume wafting through the wake the frost her
permanent winter bed
THE SECOND PATH
the one where you and I and all our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love will die
I see a bowl of ashes I see dead dandelions wilting on the stove
the steam carries souls up into my nose where I recall the heat
and depth of the Grand Canyon sun pressing against my
neck Dad in his thick glasses & sweat arms around me &
I pick up a stone & throw it over the edge
(originally published in The Courtship of Winds, 2019)
Young
I can tell you how many points LeBron scored last night
or who won the World Series,
but I can’t fix the leaking faucet in the bathroom,
won’t mow the lawn if not overgrown.
I don’t change the oil in my Ford
nor bring home a solid paycheck–
but I will live in an apartment
to avoid responsibility.
I’ll pay lots of money to tell
a landlord I can’t do it.
I’ve already lived in a car to avoid the responsibility
of telling a landlord I can’t do it.
I didn’t know how to fix it when it broke down,
and a Samaritan changed my flat tire when I burst it
when turning into a potholed Burger King lot
and I claimed I was about to fix it.
He told me not to pay more than twenty-five dollars for a used tire–
no more than twenty-five dollars, and get the rim hammered out
for free!
I went to the tire shop and paid their thirty-five to avoid conflict.
Wordlessly they stopped eastbound traffic on Pico
and I backed away and left.
One thing I can do well is parallel park,
as if reverse-navigation is worth bragging about
but I’ll take it.
No one has the courage to fit inside this small space.
No one can fit inside here but me
(originally published in Literary Yard, Winter 2018)
Real Shit
We’re eating Thai food, like we were supposed to do yesterday,
and I tell you that spice level, I couldn’t handle but next I know
we’re walking through alleys shoulder-to-shoulder when you ask
when you gonna talk about the real shit? And we keep on, sun
dipping to avoid the real conversations and I know this box of Stella
in my hand isn’t strong enough to make me start, but in my house
there’s honey whiskey, and I ask if that’s real enough but no,
too much sweetness. We drink anyway, ice falling from freezer
to floor as I reach for Old Crow to hurry to some kind of real talk,
the kind we couldn’t find on our walk to Giant Eagle
but there are bonfires too hot for our hearts in the real world,
a tinder of paper and logs we decide not to learn the names of
and we’re drowning whiskeys, beers, and slow small-talk
telling each other about exes to the flame’s orange humming
and that’s real, I thought, but not real shit and so the hanging lights
are unplugged and we’re searching for stars through clouds of smoke
and we talk about how little we know, how far we want to go
but beside you those stars don’t seem so far and in the swirl
of darkness we kiss, realize that’s the real shit
until we open enough to tell each other.
(originally published in Cease, Cows, Fall 2017)
Entropy
the mylar unicorn balloon juts out of my moodlighting lamp
& won’t lose air sealed lips but the horn’s starting to sag
it’s not sad it’s entropy how slowly things around you deteriorate
I look at my unmade bed & puppy fur on the floor & the wind
beats at the window it’s the first day of spring & my voice is hoarse
with allergens so texting you downstairs & we’re scared something
bad may come of us that our own house will fill with mercury whether
in tapwater or shower water or the plug to come undone that causes
the washing machine to overflow and it will
(originally published in Maudlin House, Spring 2017)
Pool-Blue
We lounge by the pool
& sink before entering.
Its blue averts new colors.
It’s simple: I don’t know how to love
without drowning,
lungs flooding with chlorine.
I never want to dive into the deep
& forget how to breathe
but I followed & found to love
is to leave your fins on land–
but silent in the deep, lungs
rationing air, I want us never to open
our eyes underwater to find
the pool colorless– that we
will always see the blue
the water does not have.
(originally published in GNU Journal, Winter 2017)
Percussion / Swimming
(originally published in Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, Winter 2016)
James Croal Jackson 