rain

Day 14 of 21 (Block A)

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I saw you meditating
in the UPM’s office    shades pulled
lotus on speckled carpet

you caught me wondering
if you were tranquil     I felt terrible
though the door was open    I was

an arrow piercing peace
that single moment    I don’t know
if you ever think about it

your spotting my gaze   lasted one
second at most    my mind runs
reruns    just tell me you’ve forgotten

in the chaos of casting   hundreds
of extras    for a scene canceled
by sudden rain

(originally published in The Broadkill Review, Summer 2021)

Rainwater Is Now Undrinkable

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

everywhere around the world.
I learn this at work, a television
production office. A film would
frack lands surrounding its sets
were it to save a few hundred
bucks– you thought I’d say lives?
What powers that be? We’re alive,
yes, already pulsing red rivers
breached with microplastics.
The jingling adds up in my veins.
When I read forever chemicals,
I want it to mean love
but it is in the way we will
suffer together, forever,
oil rigs raised, still, all
over, hands up in ugly prayer.
The burning questions I want
to ask I can’t even stand
outside in a storm and be satiated.

(originally published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Winter 2023)

Leak

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Amber water dripping from the ceiling–
inadequacies from above. Last night I drank

a strawberry margarita & saw on your father
the face of your sister. He poked a hole in the tile

with a ballpoint pen. Asked for a hammer
nails or a screwdriver & we had none. The

rain at war with this city flooding three days &
I face temperance by drinking less & choose

games at bars we fold up at the end of each
loss then go home to watch movies because

the self grows this way forward. You study
heavy books I lay on the rock futon in our guest

room far from the tarp across our bed & the new
carpet stained from what we cannot stop. Water

follows least resistance the contractor says.
I need small emergencies to seal these gaps.

(originally published in White Wall Review, Winter 2021)

Denuded

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Naked at the lake between salamander bodies, I kiss
your face, handfuls of sunflower on my nipples.

With mountains behind me (to my surprise)
I have become a bouquet. Verdant hills

a family– a cheetah must hide in this wilderness.
I feel emerald eyes ogling me from somewhere

in space time– even in this reunion,
I want to be as naked as a cloudless sky,

as the eroded stone I stand on.

(originally published in The Sock Drawer, Fall 2020)

Umbrella

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

In the lips of thunder, we never feel full
as rain slips from our mouths– the brick
streets are slicked with histories we will
not yet slip. Sediment lodged in the curb
will displace in time. Our tongues slicken
in the dry we create so we thirst for the
wet we tried simply to shield from ourselves.

 

(originally published in The 1932 Quarterly, Autumn 2018)

I Think of Giraffes Sometimes. I Hope They Sometimes Think of Me.

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

In Kathleen’s apartment in Oregon,
I ask her where even is home?

Clevelanders-turned-transplants,
maybe never knowing.

I see my mom’s mown lawn
in the green fields our baseball

team travels through, my friends
in tweets spitting scores or stats.

These, I don’t care about,
but I join in discussion.

Blue hands to high-five,
then to put my phone down.

 

(originally published in Hobart, Winter 2018)