columbus

I Want You to Think of Me All the Time

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

My partner says I want you
to think of me all of the time,
leaving knick-knacks: glow-
in-the-dark stars on the ceiling,
Miami Collection Post-Its,
a mylar balloon unicorn

that is thriving. She props it
on my lamp so it’s in my face
when I need more light. A kawaii
bumper sticker on my iPhone.
Hand-drawn cards in the drawer.

But I see tumbleweeds of dog hairs
and dust in the corners on the floor.
I find strands of your black
hair in my beard. I leave

last week’s dishes for not-my-present
self to find and when I see the balloon
on the lamp, I get it: you know
what keeps me going.

(originally published in Tower Poetry Society, Spring 2023)

Falling Rock

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

As soon as a stone (from where,
who knows?) cracked my wind-
shield during a delivery I quit

my job as a driver. I zagged
right from the highway’s
middle lane to the median

and set the car in park,
but could not control my thoughts–
chest throbbing, engine thrumming.

I had to step out and breathe
before I could convict the
quartz intending to harm me.

All smooth and small, I was not
sure which was the right rock,
scanning gravel to see several

similar enough. But the wolf
among them, I know, wanted to
break the glass, blind me

and puncture my jugular, only
for me to be saved by a surgeon
who would never fully believe

the story. I avoided death this time,
alive on the side of the road, looking
back in search of a falling rock sign.

(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)

Now That You Are Engaged

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

       I refuse to believe
a word you told me. We talked home
movies by your bedside lamp
       and shared a feather pillow.
Don’t talk to me about the fate
of birds when morning comes and all
       I hear is silence. Then I listen a
little longer and hear your soft breathing
I know you’re faking. You don’t sleep,
       I didn’t either. The absinthe on your
breath meant we lived long enough
to forget another night. How could
       we forget a lesson like that?

(originally published in Sweet Tree Review, Winter 2023)

Continents

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You say I love your face and I love yours
though it can be hard to know the blur,

the amber nights swished with vodka
tonic straw. I had the option to

leave, but you kept me here when I was
cold and afloat, warmed with handmade

bonfire. I drift across the vast Atlantic,
feel tectonic pull after all its pushing,

a broken chunk of earth adrift– don’t we
wait for the current to tell us where to go?

I’ve waited and waited through Pangaea
-esque ruptures I wanted to stop– but

still you kissed my cheek and said
forever we will be interconnected.

(originally published in The Post Grad Journal, Winter 2024)

A Poetry of Place

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Because Tony once said he knew
Columbus and Los Angeles the way I do–
I have not yet developed a poetry of
place for Pittsburgh. Three years in and
still the surprise hills, the way I always
feel– still– an outsider wending my way
through confusing streets. I’ve worked with
Kailee’s dad longer than I lived with Paige
and still we haven’t had a deep conversation.
Everywhere I go there remains a sense of some
thing deep that needs explored. The way
I walked Los Angeles streets at night–
the endless sprawl– must be the same,
but Pittsburgh’s smaller, the graffiti
more familiar, how it’s all a sketch of home.

(originally published in Vilas Avenue, Winter 2023)

Hudson

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I left your place with nothing
to say to the paper skeleton
hanging on your door. Walked
the street in old, browned
loafers to meet other friends,
no celebrations to celebrate.
Your birthdays always pass
without fanfare. I see ribbons
in you when you do not.
Candles, cake, club
music. Striating lights
to spotlight, embrace,
then the world– its
countless, colorful
ribbons– would spin
around us, give you this.

(originally published in Across the Margin, Summer 2020)

Shirtless in Goodale Park

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I swing my shirt
around like a lasso
at the community
festival
when you walk by
my sunburnt torso
and stop
to ask how I have been.
Last month
we hung out
in circles
before I confessed
and we got dizzy.
When you exit
the conversation,
I drink
myself onto
a patch
of clumped grass
wishing
our shirtlessness
together was
a more organic
situation,
but everyone
here is shirtless.
We are all half
naked in the sun
hoping for another
chance.

(originally published in Poetry Super Highway, Summer 2022)