WHITE MULCH
My face pressed to the window screen – black pick-up trucks
pass. A little bit of breeze is recommended to ground yourself.
Such violence in a chicken nugget. If I think about vegetable
intelligence, I will allow myself only to eat white mulch. When
becoming grass, nothing happens to the soul. Clumps of earth
inside my fingernails when I scratch at the dirt, and still I weed
myself to the idea that beauty is ubiquitous in nature. At the sky
I choke on the concept of air. That my lungs work all living
hours, ununionized, is betrayal. My desk chains me
to the dark, and still I have the heart to look out a window?
James Croal Jackson (he/him) is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. He has two chapbooks (Our Past Leaves, Kelsay Books, 2021 and The Frayed Edge of Memory, Writing Knights, 2017) with one forthcoming: Count Seeds With Me (Ethel, 2022). He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, PA.
