Love

Tamales at Andrea’s

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

At her Penn Hills home an endless view
of rain green wide windows. With sink hot
faucet water we tear banana leaf a piece
of wallpaper press the masa they prepped
into dried dark a sturdy table.

Drop sauce, fork pork, wrap ribbon
makes pride and we learn to live
again. Almost a year still fresh
the big bowl of dead animal we gather
around. Andrea says steam in leaf

adds floral flavor, a life
to death jiggling within us–
oh, sweet touch of camaraderie,
hugs on a late December
Saturday. You were afraid

we started the day too early, but
we are in our mid-thirties. I wanted
to begin yesterday the festivities
that let us remember why we
remain alive– brown butter cookies

and the love, so much love in the living
room. When we get to the presents–
having already unwrapped our proud
banana leaves, there are Penguin
classics, band t-shirts, soy candles

but what we’d trade for anything–
white elephant– is more time.

(originally published in Triggerfish Critical Review, Summer 2024)

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)