Love

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)

Rectangular Rainbow

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The clouds induce trance on the drive
home from work today. White sheep pile
atop each other on a ranch in Montana
until the weight of an oncoming storm
that never comes except for a stub of
rainbow that peeks from behind far hills.
In the open stretch of highway it reveals itself
as a rectangle floating in the middle of cerulean,
squiggly lines across it, a glitch of physics
my phone cannot capture. I text you from
the middle lane– soaring eighty– because
you love rainbows. You say you walked
around our block but could not find it.

When I arrive home I am filled with unknown,
spiritual vigor. We split a red, frozen pizza
then leave for a journey following our favorite
clouds above, on high alert for the rainbow.
Guided by pink translucent clouds in blue
outlines, you ask me holistically, what are your
career goals? I can’t stop searching upward,
awestruck by the air and rare beauty
in the world, in the center of our elevated
city of bridges and transitions and roads
that fall into each other in chaos you
must understand to survive. The sunset
is somewhere and I know our clouds
obscure it. I know my career involves
sacrifice but I am chasing film’s thrill.
The whims of our uppermost winds!
I have taken you along.

(originally published in I-70 Review, Summer 2024)

Omnipotence

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Your laugh could knock civilization out
but you are too modest.

I spent time at the cafeteria alone
at school. Red trays quivered.

On film sets I can’t look up.
How tight is the lighting rig?

When I apply that logic
to our place in the universe–

it’s too cold a stone to live alone.
When your soundwaves reach me,

in my solace, from the moon
or Mars or Mars, Pennsylvania,

I want my life to begin again
and I want you there

the whole time.

(originally published in Ephemeral Elegies, Spring 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)

Reruns

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I sit by the fan
this May afternoon
alive forever
in the green
of our home-
made salad
(spinach, chickpea,
yellow pepper, tahini),
sore and sweaty
from carrying air
conditioners up
steep hallway stairs.
Using the heat-
gun and pliers
I straighten
my brain’s
antenna.
Our argument
becomes static
on a tube TV
in someone
old’s living
room.

(originally published in San Antonio Review, Winter 2023)

Leaving Work

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I.

After these exhausting days
who knows why I yell to no one
the things I yell on the way
to my car after work: gravel
grass and hill road buzzing
in the deepening sunset.

II.

The only relief I ever feel
is sunlight on my face
when leaving work–
the temporary confusion
of unsheathing one
unwanted part of me.
The breeze
greets me
like a once-friend,
my name
on the tip
of her tongue.

III.

Each minute– each second– beyond
when I am supposed to leave
wilts me. I look longingly out
the window mud-
stained in sunlight
I did well in the past
to ignore.

IV.

I get upset
having to spend
the remainder of
my meager self
racing
the end of day
light. I fight
my way through
traffic lights,
red in surrounding
eyes– to arrive
at my familiar
steps, already at
the foot of dawn.

V.

Morning
has that air
I like– half-
asleep possibility,
a natural neutrality,
a newness only possible
half-dreaming
beside the waving
branches.

VI.

Tonight, I spend my time
on an ice cream cone
with you. Under the full moon.
It makes my teeth hurt
but worth the work
a random hour a week
or two ago, when I was
sitting at my desk, wanting
nothing more than to come home
and see you.

(originally published in Statement Magazine, 2023)