James Croal Jackson
Airport Protest in a Crumbling America
We march through the airport in cold winds chanting
aluminum fists in the air and when we come home
the Fireball bottle is empty. The chimney is covered
in dust and Johnny has pneumonia for the second time
this year, lungs filled with water but no one else
breathes easily, just tuning into television fills a room
with coughs and silence. We had wings for a minute
but the planes have resumed their spots in the air far
away from the things that hurt. Just gazing down on
wide landscapes of gray plains and small churches
crumbling from the steeples.
The Uncertainty Principle
Quantum physics has never been
more real than in this steaming
silver pot of Annie’s shells
and cheddar butter and milk
I’m cooking and the cat in our house
attacks crumpled-up balls
of paper yet sprints in fear
when a toilet is flushed. We are
all in orbit. You and me and
Earth and spoon in pot
mixing components into
tornado and I don’t know
where the melting butter
ends up nor the cheese
or where I’ll be in ten
years or a thousand
because our atoms
can diverge into
two paths any given
moment
THE FIRST PATH
the one where you and I and most our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love has died
it’s my father I see dandelions on the dead a suit and tie something
he never would have worn & your mother her silky dress and
Avon perfume wafting through the wake the frost her
permanent winter bed
THE SECOND PATH
the one where you and I and all our friends and family are still alive
because ten years is a long time someone both of us love will die
I see a bowl of ashes I see dead dandelions wilting on the stove
the steam carries souls up into my nose where I recall the heat
and deepness of the Grand Canyon sun pressing against my
neck Dad in his thick glasses & sweat arms around me &
I pick up a stone & throw it over the edge
