Sonoran
my skin carries the radiation of phone
glow the radio. Of something static
O Arizona. Azure eyes & sandy
cries just an echo. I want to say I am
hallowed. That I carried your branches
with me too as extra arms but I am
night and limb- and lone- liness.
I am spider I am timeless. If I may
please say another thing about deserts
we share an emptiness.
Distance Makes the Heart
grow fonder, or so is said,
but I’ve learned it as distance
makes the heart forget us–
the equation is miles plus
time equals a greater radius,
as between words dangling
on a phone line, or inflections
slung from mouths through
the atmosphere onto a satellite,
far removed from its origin,
home now absolute zero, cosmos
cold and steel, this floating coffin
a language of longing, your voice
massaging my eardrums until
silence
Forks and Merges
under salmon sunset
a box truck
approaches
wearing red lipstick
in a car we celebrate
forks and merges
drivers get to choose
God
but the Devil was clear
kept the chimney burning
to keep the world alive
in time He will
learn to play
His guitar
You ask for a dolly, I offer a hand
Having a crush means this structure
will one day come crumbling.
You come home high and stare at
the mirror and tell me maybe everything
will be better with makeup.
I ask what this means and
you hold your birthday crayons
over a blank page and draw
a tomato garden, a vine in a vase–
though in the soil someone has
lodged a cigarette still burning.
James Croal Jackson (he/him) has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in Pacifica, Reservoir, and indefinite space. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in the film industry in Pittsburgh, PA. (jimjakk.com)
