memory

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)

The Well

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

     bucket

     hangs

       on

    frayed

     rope

   the old

      man

    could

      not

    recall

   how to

     drop

     arms

    moving

   straight

     down

  how deep

     how

   fragile

  the mind

   is now

  and how

     fast

  it falls

   as soon

     as

  control

   slips

    away

     bits

 of wood

     in

   dark

  water

   echo

       a

  hollow

   splash

(originally published in Willow Review, Spring 2025)

Strangers with Appreciation

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

IN BOUNDLESS EXPANSE
BETWEEN JOB AND SILENCE
NOSTALGIA AND THE EVER-
LIVING PRESENT I SIT IN FRONT
OF A PROJECTOR SCREEN
COOLED BY THE WINDOW
UNIT I CAN DERIVE NO
MORE MEANING TO VIDEO
GAMES NO
                               it is the purpose of a stranger to dream
                               for me to be engaged so in his fever
                               your creativity is what I want
                               now that I don’t have the rapturous
                               privilege of losing myself
               but haven’t I
          wrestled with every single
whim every whistle
   of the wind that calls for me
I answer
                               for a little while then reach then
                        ASK NO QUESTIONS
                        FOR ANSWERS I COULD NEVER KNOW
                        THE MEANING OF THE STARS NOR
MY PLACE WITHIN MY BRAIN WHERE
                        THE SOUL SITS
                 it’s sick sometimes in
                 how I want to be someone else???
                 but I look at old pictures of myself
                 and think he’d be so happy to see
                 how unrecognizable he is to himself

(originally published in confetti, Fall 2023)

Obsolescence

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The only photograph of us we ever took was
at Thursday’s Lounge, on an ancient phone from
ten years ago. Your boyfriend at the time snapped
us, smiling, in front of the liquor selection. Neither

of us realized it would be years until the next time
we would meet again. Since then, I have acquired
a mountain of phones, piled somewhere in storage.
And while I want to find this picture for some kind

of momentary joy, I cannot hope to find one such
antiquity in a landfill of antiquities. I know the
memory has become warped, muted, fuzzy.
Since I’ve seen you, we have both compiled a

mountain of loves, relics embedded within
ourselves. The brain’s complicated wirings–
circuitry functioning enough to remind me
we were, briefly, more than a photograph.

(originally published in AvantAppal(achia), Spring 2023)

2008 Fragment (College)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

There is a picture of you standing
in a blue IKEA bag in the chapter

room because we wanted to find God,
me and Jack and Chris. That led us

to IKEA in Robinson, Pennsylvania
and I knew not to fall asleep

in your car but I did anyway. We
were toying with the brand new

Garmin. We knew the route it wanted
us to take was not the best but

we took it anyway because technology.
I wasn’t the one who was going to tell

the lady who locked us in the parking
garage we got stuck in that we needed

to be let out. You did, and I have the
picture in my memory of you telling

her. I wish I remembered the words.

(originally published in *82 Review, Fall 2022)

Sine

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

sometimes I am too conformed to the shape
of music to hear the trapeze and

trampoline of flute and synth flinging ever
toward the eternal soundscape. pigeon

percussion next door the clanking spoons
below– I think we need distance.

Your heartbeat swells across soundstage,
no stethoscope, no starlight though once

we wanted to be famous. or want. it is
complicated. we are more paranoid

of strangers than ever before. that’s
no baking sheet, it’s rustling leaves,

not your shoes or mine. You ask
questions I don’t have.

(originally published in Pirene’s Fountain, Summer 2024)

Tetris

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I am reading old journals, putting
pieces of my past in place–
a series of staircase Tetris shapes,

a broken board mixing L.A. palm
fronds with bad haircuts Dad
gave me, but we needed to save

money, and I was bratty. I wanted
video game anime hair but got slanted
bangs laughed at by classmates and

teachers (who would never admit they
found it funny). I knew, and still do.
Sharp laughter edged in memory. I

want to say I’ve gotten over it. Over
all of it. But I still hold the smoky
gray of Nintendo controller in both

hands, and I am trying to move the pieces
where they need to go– but I am
older and life is faster, blocks falling

into places I can no longer find them,
stacking dark spaces to the top of my
screen after these earlier, easier years.

(originally published in Bond Street Review, Winter 2021)

Temporary

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I often dream of simpler times–
driving my car to a customer

with a bag full of food, and poof–
gone. Then the memory fades

in an instant. All of time
passing. Right now. Into the ether.

The clock has dropped its weary
hand a tick downward.

The other hand desperately
reaches toward the sun.

(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Spring 2023)