32nd Birthday (Quarantine)

James Croal Jackson

yesterday felt a few years older
but not in a wisdom way rather
the heartburn et cetera & today
we could meet somewhere in
the middle of the highway vines
creeping underneath its floor
boards with boombox boom fire
working no one I know knows
anyone recently & your faces
have faded into pixelated versions
of your best selves I have faith
in you but fuck God congregations
I do not blame ducks for soaring
off ponds at the faintest ripple but
maybe I left home a little too late
I sat in the basement drinking Carlo
Rossi reds I thought then it was now
or never