You are currently viewing After Losing Kingsford • Spring Cleaning, Day Thirty (Quarantine)

After Losing Kingsford • Spring Cleaning, Day Thirty (Quarantine)

After Losing Kingsford

I don’t trust a house
                    not coated in fur

        it’s in the air it’s in the air
                              if not love

                     then I don’t know how to tell you.
        It’s Sunday. I spray

                                                every surface clean.
                And still the home (I trust

    the home) has traces of you
                                       everywhere.

Spring Cleaning, Day Thirty (Quarantine)

we need to open unused sponges
            the olds behind the sink their demons

should have crawled away by now
           they reincarnate as tub scrubbers

now I look to the ceiling bemoan
                                      the blocked sky

unbox the handheld vac
           look how much dust we have collected
           just on that first step toward our bedroom

Picture of James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson

James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film production. His latest chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, Vilas Avenue, and *82 Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

Photo by Kunj Parekh.