5 Poems by James Croal Jackson
Low-Visibility Night Drive Home
For Tarik Jackson
highway needles appear
fast white lines I bullet
along an aimless angle
fate a roll of die half my
life I have had my license
tonight asphalt is slippery
and tenuous when I spend
too much time alone only
the hum of engine knowing
tires hiss more air the further
I go do not devalue yourself
the chanting mass says my
head loud roiling in ninety-mile
-per-hour grief I did not know
Tarik as well as those who knew
but I miss him should have
called in this ubiquitous darkness
smoke leather peeling off my
ten-year steering wheel a passing
truck sprays my windshield
mist this sharp steady rain Reek
drove a convertible he may have
been drenched but he would
have laughed made it seem okay
if I knew his misery if I could
see behind his laughter
mask the off-ramp winding
curve onto the final highway
home in his deep empathy
Reek drove this stretch of night
after switching off his lights
Lonely
thoughts from
the bottle I want
everyone & everything
no one around loneliness
imprints into sand
a hand desperate for a body
Sometimes I Float Through Suburbs
in my car
dead
white sunlight
shines off the shield
window waterstains
obscure the world gray
not flicking
the turn signal
left
or right won’t matter
a crash to a ghost
is whiplash
Columbus Crew SC
You said you’d be here hours ago,
weeks ago, months ago– last year,
we were late to the Crew game
then screamed nonsense to the crowd.
And then you told me you’d be back
and I waited, tethered to pole, while
the game ended and you were nowhere.
The bottles of mixed vodka we hid inside
the base of a lamppost was, miraculously,
still there at the end. But I changed
cities then came back to the light
shattered in the breath of a rubber band
slung outward toward infinity, the dash
of time not slowing any past collisions.
Catcall / Catastrophe
So you made a carrot soufflé–
no one cares about the mush
orange and earthy you made
in the oven. That shit is under
control. Look instead at Joshua
trees burning down the desert
runway. That’s a catwalk. A
catcall to the Earth from
your rolled-down pickup
truck window. See
how hot they are? It’s
like those cruel videos
where the cat’s caretaker
places a cucumber
behind the off-guard animal,
and people laugh
as the creature flees in
surprise terror.
These videos were big
for a summer. This
slideshow of tiny
cruelties– it’s harder
to find new spaces
to hide.
For Tarik Jackson
highway needles appear
fast white lines I bullet
along an aimless angle
fate a roll of die half my
life I have had my license
tonight asphalt is slippery
and tenuous when I spend
too much time alone only
the hum of engine knowing
tires hiss more air the further
I go do not devalue yourself
the chanting mass says my
head loud roiling in ninety-mile
-per-hour grief I did not know
Tarik as well as those who knew
but I miss him should have
called in this ubiquitous darkness
smoke leather peeling off my
ten-year steering wheel a passing
truck sprays my windshield
mist this sharp steady rain Reek
drove a convertible he may have
been drenched but he would
have laughed made it seem okay
if I knew his misery if I could
see behind his laughter
mask the off-ramp winding
curve onto the final highway
home in his deep empathy
Reek drove this stretch of night
after switching off his lights
Lonely
thoughts from
the bottle I want
everyone & everything
no one around loneliness
imprints into sand
a hand desperate for a body
Sometimes I Float Through Suburbs
in my car
dead
white sunlight
shines off the shield
window waterstains
obscure the world gray
not flicking
the turn signal
left
or right won’t matter
a crash to a ghost
is whiplash
Columbus Crew SC
You said you’d be here hours ago,
weeks ago, months ago– last year,
we were late to the Crew game
then screamed nonsense to the crowd.
And then you told me you’d be back
and I waited, tethered to pole, while
the game ended and you were nowhere.
The bottles of mixed vodka we hid inside
the base of a lamppost was, miraculously,
still there at the end. But I changed
cities then came back to the light
shattered in the breath of a rubber band
slung outward toward infinity, the dash
of time not slowing any past collisions.
Catcall / Catastrophe
So you made a carrot soufflé–
no one cares about the mush
orange and earthy you made
in the oven. That shit is under
control. Look instead at Joshua
trees burning down the desert
runway. That’s a catwalk. A
catcall to the Earth from
your rolled-down pickup
truck window. See
how hot they are? It’s
like those cruel videos
where the cat’s caretaker
places a cucumber
behind the off-guard animal,
and people laugh
as the creature flees in
surprise terror.
These videos were big
for a summer. This
slideshow of tiny
cruelties– it’s harder
to find new spaces
to hide.
James Croal Jackson (he/him) is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. He has two chapbooks, Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021) and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.(jamescroaljackson.com)
