By: James Croal Jackson

2014

Of course I remember how to be alone,
how to drag a lawn chair out to smoke
a shore and offer loneliness a bottle.

But there you would meet me
on a staircase of sand and we’d
gaze at the stars, meld into soft

landscape, cheek nuzzled in
a palm, starfish digging into
the sandwarm face of earth.

**
Cutting Pita

heartcrumbs on countertop serrated
breadknife your long blonde blade
we cut knowing our expiration date
still laughed hard in mornevening
light holding rubber handle steady
slicing stacks to move on

**
Backroom
green teeth
under banana light
soda chemicals fizzle
out tubes in the wall
overhead dims
and brightens
shoeprint mud
on the floor
a brown apron
discarded
with others

**

Cloud

the raindrop
life (transience

is a home)
loneliness

forms
on clear days

rising out
of reach

& always
when you wake

**

Red Brick (Tavern)
hi we were friends too open
door to old familiar face not
welcome you hand me plastic
bags of food I not for me
then say the day is young
go somewhere green
in the city where you can stray
outside the lines and away