Yellow Mama E zine

The Park

 

by James Croal Jackson

 

First it was a rash my young

doctor said was an infection,

right above my mustache, by

the wild cheek hairs I tweeze–

thin trees on the surface

of Earth. Then it was a bump,

a hill that had always belonged

there, then hills hidden all over

the park I walked through

every day of my life.

I see the ghosts of family

who didn’t find them early.

It is morning

and the clouds

are not yet whole.

The sun is a blister

at the edge of the sky,

but there’s still enough

light to believe

I have a chance.

 

 

     James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet working in film production. His latest chapbook is A God You Believed In (Pinhole Poetry, 2023). Recent poems are in The River, Mangrove Review, and Packingtown Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)

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     Image credit: On the Cosby Nature Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A collage of fallen leaves is cradled in a shallow pool by rocks and rhododendron, yet it’s a mirror of light, sky, and the living. Photography by John C. Mannone.

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       John C. Mannone is a scientist, poet, CNF essayist, fiction writer, and poetry editor who creates derivative visual art and photo art for speculative poems in Abyss & Apex, Silver Blade (on hiatus), and ADR Poetry (defunct). His photography/art appears or is forthcoming on the anthology cover of the  2026 Tennessee Voices and inside Chattanooga Writers Guild anthologies. He currently serves on the artists staff of Yellow Mama Literary Magazine. His literary work appears widely in Artemis, Critical Humanities, The New England Journal of Medicine, and others. He’s the Poet Laureate for the City of Oak Ridge, TN (2026-2028).

 

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