winter

Float Through

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

Today, I slide on slush on my drive. Unplowed roads, slippery odometer–
morning snow surprise. Pittsburgh’s a city of hills unavoidable, and later,

waiting on a grocery pickup, I stare into the rearview mirror at the frost-
tipped pines when a knock on my window removes me from my existential

stupor. I don’t know how to interact anymore. Crank the window the wrong
way. Peppermint mocha, the years past. I bought a latte this morning but did

not know how to order it. The Dunkin teens stared, dumfounded, and it was
a foggy day like this– in which I float through the happenings– that I last

crashed my car. In Los Angeles, I flew down the dry 405, beat after
a long day in a Hollywood studio, and was amazed at the hospital light

brightness as I passed Westwood, like I could snap my fingers and time
would once again resume, while five other lanes of traffic zigged around

me with no regard to my existence. I was like a visitor to myself dragged
back into being with silent smoke pouring out the mouth of my Ford’s

hood. The front was crumpled but the SUV I slammed into appeared
untouched. The sixteen-year-old girl called her dad to ask what to do.

She took my insurance, my number, then drove off with the rest of the
world, as I stood at the side of the highway waiting for someone to

help me go home, still, to this day.

(originally published in the chapbook Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press), Spring 2022)

Solace

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

It was not solace we sought in the woods,
but rather, logs to provide fire for years.
Having known too many temporary timbers that
smoke then ash in small stretches of time slung
across the small rooms one week to the next,
among the dying leaves we wanted no others.
To watch what turned red on the fringe of the
world’s balance on a sling so fragile we chose
to forget. How long have we known each other?
How long will we? Days whisk into years
without stopping. We know nothing will be
forever; just as every good memory builds
the foundation of happiness worn like vodka
on jeans. If there were a blemish it was houseflies
swept off the cabin’s hardwood. Wings on bodies
in the margins, inert. How soon for us, too.
How winds change in a week but the fire
we started on arrival lingered smoke after
the last departing tires moved pebbles from
the driveway into life’s wild, winding road.

 

(originally published in Dime Show Review, Winter 2019)

Southbound in February

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

  Almost swerved to Akron
      to delay our southbound silence
          before another car skidded into steel.
                 We smoked exhaust
            with sedans which scrunched
                    around us. Wiper squeals
            revealed hymnal landscapes
                through murky glass.
              I revel in footprints buried by snow
                                             yet do not know what–
                               if our black tires composed
                                     cadenzas in the slickening slush,
                           ambulance’s red, beating
                                    bongos thumping toward us
                                            –what we could have said
                                                   that would have ever been enough.

 

(originally published in The Slag Review, Winter 2017)

January 28

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I really want to drink today.

The sun is shining. It’s warmer than usual.

I should try to ween myself off, right? None of this cold
turkey shit.

I haven’t drank a drink this year, the miracle
of it. Today, I am alone.

I scrubbed white the kitchen tiles, but there are
always dirt stains, smudges when you look
a little harder.

Sanitized the kitchen table with towels,
swept its crumbs from the floor.

The cat sprints from one end of the room
to the other over
and over, imaginary laps.

What every day is, these days,
running a relay race, handing
the baton to tomorrow’s me
with the trust I won’t– today,

it’s a sleep’s worth heavier than yesterday.

Long minutes the placemarks I pass

I can’t make time go faster. It is my day
off work, and in its nothingness I trudge
through sludge. Old habit,

you don’t die hard because
you’re not dying. You’re
as alive as me: refreshed yet craving,

gazing through the window to the light-
stained street, the shadows cast from trees
out toward the river.

 

(originally published in Stickman Review, Spring 2018)

Last Night You Took My Keys & I Need Them

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

snow has piled on my car    it is so irrelevant
this cold undesire to work    each day   secretly    I want
  to draw your face with my pointer finger in the windshield frost with
xoxo but here’s the thing      this particular morning is a long violin
fog ascending through the city     if I can’t
go         here is my excuse     to go to you

 

(originally published in Columbia Journal Online, Winter 2018)

Sunshine Daydrinking

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

I need to break the association
this first day over forty in January
sun wicking everything orange
and melting snow     which had mountained
around Columbus     this past year’s been
climbing     an unending goal since I gave up
drinking       through a Lent that lasts forever

I stopped believing in God early on
and instead chose to believe in sacrifice
first my health     now my vice    the nights
when I lose myself in another religion
in rapid ascent up blackout mountain
waiting for the harness to snap

 

(originally published in Edison Literary Review, 2018)

Kimmy Granger

/ James Croal Jackson / Leave a comment

The green blanket over your head–
Kimmy Granger gets fucked
by a fake photographer
on your iPhone in my hand.
Meanwhile, you ride me, moaning–
it’s snowing– December’s waning
autumn days– awaiting a kind of fate
under flicked-off lights
in the gray of afternoon.
Before this, we reminisced about
the early days– laying in bed my hand
in your hair listening to music.
Then late July laying in grass saying
the ways we make each other happy.
Which is why I must rewind this clip
over and over to the part where Kimmy
is smiling and laughing before
the whole thing starts and
I pine for the blanket, your
green thread and lint.

 

(originally published in Ghost City Review, Winter 2018)