dq

Our Ritual

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I kiss the cheek of my cat
   she hums in her sputtering
      engine the comfort
  of our ritual she twitches
         on my chest stares
              deep into my eyes
        our noses
                  sniffing
                              each other

                truth is
                      her teeth
            reek of yesterday
                  but I am trying
                          to rid myself
                  of the past
                                year

(originally published in The Gorko Gazette, Summer 2024)

To Sara (From Kermit)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

This world you teach me is velvet
mice in your palm, on the carpet,
in my teeth, repeat. And the silver
crinkle ball that shines purple in sun
light that I cannot stop batting across
the floor. I sometimes push it into
that unreachable darkness underneath
the couch downstairs. DQ told me there
once was a cat who left and never
returned, and she thinks about him
constantly, expecting him each entrance
of outside light, and I tell her no, there’s only
me and you, and I run around the house,
seeking his faint traces. And she tells me of days–
long, unimaginable days– when no one is around
and you just have to bide your time and wait.
It seems so lonely. I run to her and
she screams and retreats into the Cavern of
Bags. I follow her in too deep. Please
tell me you will always be around.
I need someone here to complete
such important work, this
drive inside that bursts and blooms
its way across the corners
of these rooms I’m learning,
this love I newly navigate far
from small, stuffed cages
I used to think
was the world
until I met the space
within your affection,
a bond of greater
boundlessness.

(originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Winter 2023)

Where We Are Going

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

My hand gentle on the vibration of DQ’s back.
We ascribe memories to animals. Anthropomorphism
is our system. Kingsford’s scent lies on fewer and fewer
surfaces– we vacuumed his hairs, changed the covers
this August of grieving, and in bed we say
the living one dreams of her human family. If ever
there was a before in this cat’s life, if ever she could
recant her past to us– what I hate about the cage is
not the sick animal inside it, but that I can’t explain
where we are going, or why, just he needs to trust
me, beyond all his mewling (we pass a fish truck
on Penn Avenue in sunlight) – trust me: where
we are going will end your suffering.

(originally published in Kalopsia Lit, Spring 2022)

Hog

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

there is no wrong way to eat
a hot dog there is no right
to eat a dog there is no hot
dog hot popsicle of pig
meat slathered in existential
ketchup bread-claustrophobic

                                                                    *

         once on a drive home from Central Catholic
         I stopped at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru
                 and asked for hot dog wrapped in lettuce
                 I was more hypochondriac at sixteen
                 than at thirty-two anyway the kid
                 at the window said they couldn’t
                 but I insisted and the manager
                 smuggled the long sizzling dog in wet
                 lettuce I carry that shame in the trash
                 bag of my trunk to this day

                                                                    *

        pig meat
                       pig meat
                                       in a sleeping bag of green

                                                                    *

        there is no way to eat a dog
        there are ways to eat a hot dog
             I am a bog I am the bog I am
breakfast lunch dinner brunch midnight snack
  everlasting bun communion holy
water life I down through days and lick my fingers
after rough vigorous handwashing
               I’ve opened plastic package
               set skillet to flame
               lain logs on drizzled oil

                                                                    *

                       the celebrity chef in my mind
is me I documented cooking when I lived
in my car. That was my true potential. Oh, swine,
               you’re years beyond capable
yet I drove halfway across the country
to do what competitors do, which is down
hundreds of you. Joey Chestnut the undisputed
master after decades of dogs.

                                                                    *
                    Went to a dollar dog minor
                    league game twenty cents per dog flies
                    buzzing in orbit of condiments
                    five the limit at the window so all
                could see I had the buns. One each for
                     STRENGTH. ACCEPTANCE.
                        CONFIDENCE. GRACE.
                                   AMBITION.

                                                                    *

One inning was all
it took and I was alone in my new
                        city full of my father’s love
                        of baseball and barbecues. Now
                        there was an undisputed grill master.
                        Everyone knows one. I am not one.
                        There is no way to cook.
                        There is a way.
               Wayne was over and we flicked
               lit matches with our middle fingers
               from thumbs into ready
               charcoal to get the grill going.
We walked away and waited for
an action-movie explosion
but there was no ignition.

                                                                    *


                                                                                     My whole life I have been walking
                                                                                     away, not turning back to look.

(originally published in HAD, Summer 2022)

To Sara (From DQ)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Wouldn’t call myself wild. Wouldn’t last a day–
before you, another home I thought’d be forever.

Some call my eyes crystal but I couldn’t predict
a future outside the shelter. I was scared yet still

nomadic to a fault– too eager to attach, I now
purr from afar– me, on a pillow on the carpet,

you, sipping coffee on the couch– just to say
I see you, I want to go there, just not yet.

I will never detail my past, its unimaginable
happenings that make me want to spill Cabernet

glasses, scatter shards of red on tile. I’m learning
to be comfortable in my surroundings, to love

and welcome love by others in this space. I leap
atop the cabinets to walk into your world, observe.

And at night I wait for you to lay in bed when,
at last, I can rest on your chest, close my eyes,

and be.

 

(originally published in The Mark Literary Review, Spring 2020)

I Try to Keep Your Ice Cream Cake Cold

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It is eighty-two degrees in Pittsburgh and my trunk
is crammed so your DQ cake sits in the passenger seat,

moves the same speed I do in my car in this orbit
in this galaxy. There is so much matter to keep cool

in the universe, but there’s sunshine through my wind-
shield and you– I know– thaw as a passenger beside

me. I’m doing what I can: aiming all the frigid vents
that way, holding a folder to shade you. I drive fifty-

five in a thirty-five to avoid my mind entertaining a
milky flood mixed with dust, dog hair, cookie crumbs,

and lust pooling where you are, your name in icing
illegible– it’s fine, for now. Don’t freak out. I am

floating over a bridge, the sun forever taunting,
and soon I know you’ll go, in one way or another,

into the mouth of a thankful person– whether me,
trying to save you from this heat, or you, radiant

as the sun, seeing celestial bodies who– for at
least this rotation– you know revolve around you.

 

(originally published in Dodging the Rain, Spring 2020)

Third Anniversary (During COVID-19)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

                        After Mikko Harvey


I don’t
want you
to be
scared. Maybe
thinking of
a cat
would help.
Have you
seen
the video of
the one
waddling into
the ocean
to be with
her friend?
She swims
onto his
head
and they stay
afloat.
When they’re done,
she beelines
through sand
to the towel
he set up
on the
beach,
and he pours
sun-warmed
water to
heat her up
before he rubs
her down.
Sometimes we
have to remember
the world before.
We don’t know
what’s going
to happen.
Kingsford and DQ
are especially
tender
at a time
like this.
What
are we
supposed
to do?
Not pet
them?
Right now,
DQ is snoring
on the blue
blanket of
the futon
without
a worry.
Our first
three years
have been
that soft.
I hope
this passes
soon.
Until then
we will squeeze
each other–
holding
our cats
close, all of
us afloat.

(originally published in Pendemic, Spring 2020)