THREE POEMS

DEPRESSION IN FEBRUARY

month close to death. not quite. i mean
lingering. sword in my throat sharpens.
no blood just ideas. look somehow
i’ll make it through & you will too.
sun a fluorescent hospital interior
bland & tasteless. every song out
of tune piano room. cold blanket
can’t hide the notes dark &
hovering outside the window

CHRISTMAS, 2017

I heard last year Uncle Keat
lost his sight, and nobody
has seen him since.

Tonight, my oldest brother– waiting
on a kidney, unable to walk–
unwraps a flashlight.

A gift of hope, I suppose,
what we lose we tend to replace
at the end of a year–

the longer Dad’s dead the wider
entropy’s net consumes us.

Today’s the fabled white
Christmas, trail of footprints
leading into the woods.

Somebody gray-bearded
and familiar waits in a clearing,
hands cupped to mouth.

There’s no warmth in
red streams of wrapping paper
hanged from winter branches.

Uncle Keat was there,
we’re sure. Somewhere
his tether.

As if another dark
world with open jaw
awaits, and time

pushes us forward,
wheels squeaking
every now and then.

MID-OHIO

Wheels spinning,
the tanker trailer bears
down the highway.

The buzzsaw precision
of power structures–
thin, bald trees–

wheels spinning
in isolated towns–
American flags

flat and paved,
70 mile per hour signs
close and sharp.

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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, 2017) with one forthcoming: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel, 2022). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)