lust

Resurrection

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

in dark crowds I look for your shadow
along the perimeter of park grass wet

my beer churns from belly-up to forget
seeing you again but for now loud thumps

and guitar squeals glow from every beacon
the way one holds to hope just long enough

to make it religious communion in every
plastic cup bought from jazz-blue tokens

I wait for resurrection every turn of head
with you wandering some sidewalk

I walked earlier how you materialize just
the body returning to remind me I cannot

wait any longer to be rid of wanting to walk
in circles until I cannot know any better

if you were ever even real at all

 

(originally published in Chantwood Magazine, Spring 2017)

Garden

/ James Croal Jackson / 1 Comment

You cannot gut a tomato without first
remembering the garden. The mud-rutted
fingers pulled at weeds; silver shovels spiraled

to and from the sky. The spit, the rain. It took months–
years– didn’t it, to differentiate? To grow into something

unrecognizable? You knew what this would become,
the way a person finds her own shadow
insufficient. A broken silhouette of scarecrow.

It was then I could not see you– with your bangs
of hay, the ground sprouting milkweed.

Those tired hands milled ‘til the sun had no meaning.
You wore dark clouds as a cape stained
with mud the work helped us forget.

 

(originally published in Ground Floor Drinkers, Summer 2017)

What I Want

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Your limb fingers pressed
on the stairway keyboard,
wanna see you move like
you used to, feel your breath
close to mine in new places, say
the same words we said, even if
it was a stupid Sunday,
hear the words,
hear them again, pink erase
the drinks
and listen, hear the words
in my head, I want to feel
the air shake again electric,
the clacking marimbas, I want
your fingers, all of them, pressed
again like whispers
I like to explore,
want the minor chords
out of my head, want your blonde hair
in the ridges between my teeth,
strands in my curled tongue,
tell me what the stars are like
in your own words,
want to hear them,
want to hear their twinkle
in your voice

(Originally published in Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Issue Forty-One)