potential

Rabbit

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Went to Thursdays with
a friend who quit boot
camp but hates this bar so
left. I am good at waiting in
darkness, alone, drinking.
Other friends come but are
clung on by creepers. I Woke
Up Today by Port O’Brien
plays and suddenly we’re on
the precipice of another Ohio
summer! I high-five Rabbit
AKA High-Five Guy who is
an Eagle Scout. He buys us
shots of Crown and Coke,
then throws his glass into
the air, aiming for the roof.
But there is a hole in the roof
and the glass follow’s gravity’s
stringent rules and shatters
on the kaleidoscope everywhere.
The bald, black-eyed bouncer
points a finger and we are back
on the streets, the future still
shards in our powerful palms.

(originally published in The Beatnik Cowboy, Spring 2023)

Boneless / Bells

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

What is special to me may not be to you.
Wings the heat you burn overtakes you every
bend of tongue the mouth and heart I am muscle.
The sun in excess beats heavy on fingers
playing games on calculators in memory. The bell rings
from one era to the next and the textbook of learning
splits in half. In high school you wake up
an hour before being woken up. This is a
relationship mathematically unreasonable.
Split your brain first then your body then time.
Ahead is an entire cardboard runway to burn.

(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review, Spring 2021)

#1

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

When I say you are my number
one I mean in the line of infinity:

crystals in sand, the observable
universe, atoms in the pretzel of

our hands– we were in the back-
seat. You were in the middle

of a knot, trying to emerge
beyond the physics that

has no name to call us.

(originally published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Spring 2023)