James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022). Recent poems are in Ghost City Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Lamplit Underground. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

A Dog Barks Without Purpose

Sometimes I sit at home
in the dark on a sunny day,
depressed for the world 
I am missing. 
                        When I go
out, though, to a bench in Friendship 
Park, my mind purples and feels 
the need for acid, or escape
the ubiquitous bacteria of strangers
as skin roasts without shade, two-
legged predators encircling me,
the yarl of everything rising
from grass with morning dew, 
a flood seeking contentment,
a vulture seeing vultures
austere in slow time, 
as if I could ever want
anything else.

The Music Around You

Press and play the keys, 
sing words in harmony 

in familiar living rooms
and anywhere, everywhere new.

Step away from the microphone
and dance to the band–

the Scioto River flows 
what you are feeling, blue water 

soothing the future, a mustache ride, a wine 
in hand, shaking, calming white 

rabbits on your baby blue 
drums, your baby dog, your old dog 

too, wonderland don’t worry 
about whatever worries you, whisper 

this vow in rhythmic measure
and it will remain forever

Eye to Eye

Just because I under-
sauteed salmon in the wok–
making the meat a slime–
doesn’t mean 
I don’t care 
for the science
behind cooking.
Even if I don’t
understand
anything
besides the heat
that causes change.

My mother did not believe
in a meat thermometer.
She baked fish almost 
every day, cut-out
eyeballs a tower
on a wet paper towel.

The other day, 
you told me you like
the taste of fish eyes–
now instead of Italy,
you want to go
to the Philippines,
that’s your family, 
you plead sweetly.
I’ve been learning
Italian in an app
and know pebbles
more than Tagalog.

I say Cebu City
doesn’t excite me
but we disagree.
In a new relationship,
when you don’t see
eye-to-eye the stakes
are higher. Which makes
me scared when I say
we’re just apes and you say
you don’t believe in evolution,

the evolution of our relationship
having skirted the small facts
that add up to everything.

When we play an open-world
game, amazed at the map’s depth
and size you mention the world 
loops around. I test the waters with
this will make the flat-Earthers
angry! You laugh and agree
but I am trying to learn
the science behind our love,
how I don’t want to care
but the cartography
of our complex brains
I don’t understand. I don’t
care about Darwin’s
legacy, but I am
worried about the oceans
on our maps, the size
and distance of the gaps.