water

In Another Life I Am Content Enough

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

What simulation’s numb you ask
if I want children this time

definitive we boil Kraft mac
and cheese. I toss our meager sweet

potatoes in oil and ramble about financial
self-worth the oven nearly at four hundred

degrees. I can’t stop petting your shoulder
the ashy cat roams in the loam of our love

our newly swept hardwood the house
our home for now so limited already

steam from the inside a pressure
cooker of different timelines. What river

these converging lives to seek meaning
in the biological job postings some of us

are born to call. My dad was sixty-one
when I was born my grandfather clock

ticks nonexistent. We have gorged in all
our broken cabinets to rustle the blue

plastic grocery bag pile. I can’t stand
to live another day preoccupied.

(originally published in Flights, Summer 2021)

Weeks of Rain

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It began to rain, it rains, the
drainage of the city trembles.

A moth dances in the wind
through Carl Sagan’s window.

When we live, we apologize
for the love. Rain falls, rain

drains, and water is the body
where we lose trust.

Shadows drown
the house at night.

In the sun there is dust–
the moth follows love there.

We apologize to moths.
Rain is the body; trust

does not return. Shadows
eat the moths at night.

 

(originally published in Terror House Magazine, Summer 2019)

Walking in Rain

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Don’t worry, I’ve seen Signs.

I know we’re not vulnerable
the way those on-screen aliens are,

deathly allergic to water. We’re made of
the stuff yet haven’t learned to fear it.

Avoid city taps. Toxic, they say.
I’m drinking tons of it, unless you mean ego,

in which there’s a bucket devoid of myself
the dark sky so badly wants to donate to.

In the way you believe, we are not aliens,
unless you mean we don’t know ourselves.

Every day, my mouth dries up
avoiding strangers. M. Night Shyamalan

dons an aluminum hat upon spotting me.
I’d do the same– leave the store looking

down at my feet, toggle up the heat
in my Ford in heavy winter clothes

to sweat my chemical reaction out.

(originally published in COG Magazine, Spring 2019)

60%

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

to stay alive I must believe I am water
inside my own body inside the river

my living an arrow shot into the forest
ghost slashed open by every stranger

who claims to walk on water when
nothing but air parting is the motion

of feet scrambling to become some
sacred proclamation it is not

 

(originally published in S/WORD, Fall 2018)

Grandma, Half-Underwater

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Late in life she lived as a lagoon’s only human
among monsters she half-recognized. To visit
was a kind of drowning– submerged in nursing
home fluorescents of nursing half-breathing,
I asked Mom who am I talking to?
Her eyes asked the same.

I guess all of us,
none of us glad
we came, we had to,
wanted to, really,
despite grandma’s face
cloudwhite, going
there knowing her
soon to swim the
wispy ocean of
afterlife– that, at
least, we wanted
to believe, to see her
again the way she
would want to be seen,
not now like this

(originally published in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Fall 2018)

In This Cafe You Thought You’d Find Solace from This World

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

through speakers 70s music bass
guitar heartbeat pulsating through
a weatherman chants forecasts out
of sync a microwave beeps the shrill
coffee machines trembling cash
register slamming baritone voice
barista says he has bad hearing you
said something before sandwich fan
spins no rhythm stringed spurt richochet
solos quiet everyone reading books
tablets not responding to chaos burnt
bagel wafting sorry sorry the window
rain begins drum drum drum drum
one two three four the faucet spits
on everyone walks in don’t you
want somebody to love?

 

(originally published in IthacaLit, Spring 2018)

Brushing

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

As I run hot faucet water
over the head of my electric toothbrush,
Jennifer asks isn’t it better
when we brush our teeth together?

This, of course, is redundant.

I have cleaned the spit
and foam from my brush alone
through the years,
watched clean water slowly spiral
down a clog.

I have taken better care
of myself.

Flossed the plaque
between memories,
tartar of bad habits,
freshened breath
in and out of you.

These I can withstand.

Thus I answer at all.

In a Mouth / In a Pool

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

there’s nothing but teeth
and sky and sharp wind shrieking
out until slapped / skin and sunbreak
risen water suspended after a cannonball
plunge / eyes closed we split
through chlorine like we’re chemically
bound / to renewal but how artificial
we fill ourselves with air and float / eyes
up at the clouds and a single plane
descends / toward LAX and we know
how it ends: a little shake / in the landing
and diminished speed recalling
the turbulence / that dove
from glass mansions

 

(originally published in After the Pause, Fall 2017)