“Forty Degree Echo” by James Croal Jackson

you’re biting your nails again o sweet 

white of time I feel in the December rush

of cold the whoosh of closed & open 

doors the portals if I knew where to look

I wanted stripes & bite of thrush 

behind me now the lust the what I liked

to look outside the window purple 

slice of sky & zest of orange in the burst

of energy rushing up when you walk 

& knock on the astrologer’s door

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 Poetry (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA. (jamescroaljackson.com)

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