James Croal Jackson


Factory Friend


we live the same lives
one limestone the other

the mountain gray clocks
hold hands in concentric

routines using boxcutters
to slash tape off freights

of textbooks the insular
world blurs platitudes

won’t make the day run
faster as the forklift as

convertible into stacks
of cardboard papercuts

eats away at my flesh
you lend me an apple

in leather gloves lunch
for the weary cores of

a warehouse we drive
away to separate lives




James Croal Jackson (he/him/his) is a Filipino-American poet. He has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and recent poems in DASH, Sampsonia Way, and Jam & Sand. He edits The Mantle (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)
 
 
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