food

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)

Hot Sauce

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

You know how much is too much but
you shake the bottle anyway over browned

grilled cheese sandwich and bite in.
The things you think you can get away with–

oh, the tiny fires you’ve stepped across in
the temple of your longing. Little dabs of red

on canvas– the meat of the situation is you’re
taken but, Lord, the flame goes hallelujah blue.

I’m speaking a poetry of pigs. Relationship
as slaughterhouse. Relationship as bacon

you want to slather lust all over.

 

(originally published in Adelaide, Fall 2019)

Ramen in Japantown

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I had been eating like shit living
in my car, fingernails full of fungus.
We agreed to meet in Japantown
to enjoy a fancy ramen
but this would be my first
in many years
that wasn’t Maruchan
(cheap crinkly plastic,
cancer-flavored beef-dust
in a sawtooth packet)
& you must be aware the body
struggles to digest it.
During our meal,
two years since
we last talked,
the cheap ramen must have
intermingled in my stomach
with the pork-broth
real deal. I put an egg
on top for authenticity
when you told me you had
just bought Coachella tickets
for yourself & your brother
& I didn’t want to know the
price because I was living
on wages made on the days
I was lucky enough to
find work. Umami
lingered on my tongue
as we ruminated
in silence over
how vast the distance
our lives traveled
in different directions.

 

(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Winter 2020)

Existential Food Poems

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

After reading five food poems in a row,
I paused, told the audience I get inspiration
from food. I meant I get energy, really.
At home, sometimes, I sit at the table
eating noodles and suddenly
I am at the table eating noodles!
I look at the floppy strings
on my plate and ask myself
what I’m doing. Converting
loose ends to energy, according
to education. Google tells
me to stop eating so many noodles
but to stop means less
energy– the will
to go on. These laces
tying my stomach
consumed by gastric acids
transform into aminos
that fuel me, somehow,
these noodles that don’t
make sense but somehow
allow my string of days
to keep dangling, serve
me on a plate so that
I may exist, so I can fall
in love with someone
and they can fall,
too, and steam
until we cool enough
for them to stick
their fork in me,
then wonder, what
are we doing? The
fork swivels,
gathers
a tornado
of noodles.

(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Winter 2019)

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)

Sticky Rice

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I don’t remember what I said but it stuck
with me and we laughed and sometimes
we saw the future full of starfish clinging
onto timelines we never had because I left
corrupt with stinging jellies I ate of them
often the sea the seaweed the sticky floors
I understood what we were stepping on

 

(originally published in Bitterzoet Magazine, Summer 2018)

Stray

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The way the cat looked at me
                       after his treat–

         the difference was ours has a home.

And God I am so ashamed.

                          They are the same

but I was on our unfamiliar
       porch
             swinging

a bag of sustenance

           like unlimited pleasure

                you needed

                      for survival

 

(originally published in The Magnolia Review, Summer 2018)

The Busier the Kitchen the Filthier the Dishes

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Your lunch spot becomes a haven on the ground
level of a tower between towers on rainy workdays.

Your eyes strained at the sight of a waterfall
of text and maybe you missed
an important error in copy
marketed to clients. Here, though,

the dishwasher sprays a thousand plates,
aiming spouts at cheese stains hardened
from sitting by the garbage in
the place where discarded trays should be.

Water pressure removes ceramic sin
eventually, an industrial machine
humming in silver efficiency,
skin rinsed beside it.

Glasses that pass the spot test emerge,
steam rising, but meat lodged between
prongs is wrestled out with wet finger.

Your fork drips from the steak
just in a salesman’s mouth.

 

(originally published in Stickman Review, Spring 2018)