James Croal Jackson
Franklin Avenue in 2015Two years ago, we would drink tall beers
hidden in black, plastic bags 'til we passed from laughter, fluttered to fill our glasses with more. There would have been more pages to turn, but none of us spoke our human language anymore. Now, a browned frond slumps between parked cars. Two teenagers flirt underneath a palm. Whispered leaves are fragile– each movement a link to the next until it is not. Their laughs reverberate when they, too, part. Uncork those swan bottles– let them go, graceful into night. 10514 National Blvdthe couch a forlorn slinky
stagnant. f-stop set to zero. focus: predestined flickering lights where dreams meet swan matches and peel, lit & untethered jaunty flows the air beneath the vacant couch warrior of staleness & mildew ambassador to dust-covered curtains– shards of dreams in beams of sun stream into the room; at least what is breathed, what can be seen through blinds in deep sleep– LeBron Comes HomeSawdust struck our eyes
when his teeth jawed themselves against our tree. His headband constricted us like a snake. When he unclasped, so did we. Our bodies slackened like absolved marionettes. Held beers became puddles on bar tables. The yesterdays burnt wax into our throats. Today he is Atlas with the city perched on his shoulders, the Earth a lacquered basketball. Willingly, now, we witness and worship his every move, drawn by an influence we ourselves do not carry with every blink, every breath. F(X)=4x+2I.
The function is linear. With each increase of a second, the distance traveled moves west, inward, west, a water bottle jammed beneath the brake pedal, radio static, velocity dependent on time, a subset of timing and luck, on your face embraced in a cradle on my chest, heartbreathing, the raft-like rhythms never let me sleep, never being II. Independent variables, seconds (x), muted starlings struck with the affecting distance per second, the moon an eggdrop removed from home, gentle snores, initial velocity of two meant for two, the intercept x or y, meaningless letters to write you, no matter the slope increasing, decreasing: always feels like falling when I stop |
Lance's Lamentas we gathered to mourn
the puppy struck by a car outside of the bank, i was reminded of glue: how it encrusts fingers; if it could seep through skin it would sleep in your lungs & heart & hasten the path to the common rest they couldn't have fastened the coffin with glue– too cruel, they said– if your hand could even summon the will to move a square, red magnet fastens your snow origami valentines forever to green construction paper, tiny prayers bottled i hope there is another side, even when i open the door for orange juice, cool breath of air within, glass, it breathes, infested with my own fingerprints, tartness prior to the swallow & acceptance– for as long as i am, you are, too Baklava Smileat four A.M. we drink burning
rivers under the solitary light hanging from the crusted, tall white pole perpendicular to dad's red, handcrafted birdhouse which spins in the wind. by five it rains. we leave the cobwebbed lawn chairs in darkness and sniffly we travel to France with rocks in our boots on hilly sides of streets next to deep ravines. statues stand tall in driveways and gleam gargoyle teeth. sunrise and your baklava smile is reluctant sweet summer molasses and you say we will always be friends but not when you are cold. I procure a folded blanket and wrap you in it and underneath it seemed appropriate (didn't it) how we didn't know yet how to cross. for a long time we did not and miles make for lost time adrift of the other RunnerYou always have to run.
Short North to downtown, city to city, Indiana to Tennessee– one shoe on gravel, the other careening through time and space into a green where you are unknown and your running shoes are empty at our red swing’s feet. I know you never run to leave, driving your horizon eyes miles to sun– and you, after its setting, glide beside each highway’s unlit rivers on the bridge of the median, drunk from driving so long under moon, far from where our empty bottles collect in a skyward infinity, a mountain of clinking memories– a marathon, a gap traversed quickly. Long DistanceHome is on top of my orange blanket
that's a lump in my bed like a coffin, sweating in the August heat, knowing you won't call, Pepsi cans tethered by string three thousand miles apart. |