mary

For Halloween I’ll be Jesus You Be Mary Magdalene

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

my cigarette-smoking badass waitress
      the Bible I’ll defenestrate at 3 A.M.

               Mary I went to Catholic school
while Josh played bagpipes at the Oval

Absorb tradition with sugary cocktails
               I didn’t say a word in the play

               as Pontius Pilate    I wouldn’t
               have contributed

Watch men get crucified by wine
Watch women excise their seven demons

                            this party’s a tomb
                            of sacred skeletons

leave it to the wild dogs to feast
on the bottles of Jagermeister

            we drink blue glasses
            of Zombie in the corner

 

(originally published in Down in the Dirt, Winter 2020)

Bloody Mary

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The legend, according to my sister, goes
you lock yourself in the bathroom, turn off
the lights, say Bloody Mary, spin three times,

then voila! She appears, bloodied,
hands on her face screaming
à la Edvard Munch painting.

I obviously don’t believe in this but
do you have the courage to try?

Catholic school vacuumed religion right
out of me, but I blanket my head in bed
when I can’t explain a house’s creaking.

Believe me– if I believed
that I believed, this wouldn’t be
so scary. I’d ask God to help me.

Say I try this now.

Would a vision make me a believer?
Me, an adult in a bathroom,
chanting a name into the dark.

When my eyes finally opened,
I’d pray to anything– the bathtub,
the toilet, the sink, the sliver of

light beneath the door.

 

(originally published in We Are a Website, Spring 2018)