Cape May
James Croal Jackson

On vacation my grandfather is alive,
floating at an intersection: two navy

signs floating in the ocean sky. LAFAYETTE
on latitude Y, JACKSON on the X. Never

met him until now– he was born in 1900.
We are walking to the beach after a night

of impromptu karaoke, singing songs
from eras slicked in motor grease

and endless optimism with my girlfriend
and her large, musical family.

The powerlines above the beach
string forward in my longing

for connection, ping-ponging
from one coast to the other.

At what point does the line end?
The tide continues its cyclicality

and we say we won’t have children.
As a child, Sara recalls she used to dance

to Shake, Rattle, and Roll, which my father said
was a song stolen from his father, and the sheet

music is in a trunk in someone’s basement.
My father’s not a liar but I don’t believe

him. Growing up, I had the paradoxical
want of the wealth associated with the legacy

of legend, but if he got the money, my parents
never would have met and I would have never known

existence, only what I perceive as the vast black
nothingness of never having been, never needing to.

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 Garlic Press, Remington Review, and ONE ART. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)