Tell your pets where you go when you leave. It helps them
understand. Natalie told me this
and ever since, before a days-long
shift I find my cats and chant
capitalism is not the way!
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel is a wet Ziploc bag–
a thousand squished folks gaze up to God
pointing to Adam and the rest of humanity
with shawled shoulders and the covered knees
of religion. Faith is a white speck on a bathroom mirror.
Could have been from toothpaste. Stare
at your teeth until they shine– coffee
brews this morning. Don’t care about
the stains. Art is like that. History,
too. Michelangelo was nearly blind when
he died at eighty-nine, paint dripping into
his eyes like the master- piece was not already
built into all the time he had
put in, long before the end.
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 ITERANT, Skipjack Review, and The Indianapolis Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)
