James Croal Jackson | Light Lies

nothing happens here then the bed fan turns off
creaks on the carpeted floor upstairs this house
is small but it is ours I spend hours waiting

for the knob to turn slightly oh America in your
cramped sick waiting room is it too much to ask
for a bit of decency that word has been tossed

carelessly of late but I am not too late
to reform got habits adjacent to hell Dad
might have said but he never knew

them. no one does I aim to keep it
that way so sorry you won’t ever know
me completely. sorry honesty’s

staring into the sun. can’t focus
the clouds obscure each word.

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 Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Lakeshore Review, and The Round. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. jamescroaljackson.com.