101

Improv class was how
I learned to say what
I wanted to say to you–

ice became the basis
instead.
I froze on stage

into an audience of burning arms.
If limbs were currency,
I’d be rich

in dangling
inside jokes from class when
I should have let you

in on conversations we both were part of–
inches from the icebox,
our freezer.

James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. He has three chapbooks: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022), Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021), and The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights, 2017). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com

Get the Most Recent Stories from Rollick

A weekly newsletter featuring new and emerging writers.

More from Rollick

A New World

  While he sleeps I catalogue his body. When he is awake I keep my distance. While he dreams I touch and map in a

The Solution

  I talk to myself. I have to. No one else will listen. No one else understands. Even if they did, I wouldn’t dare expose