J.E. Jackson lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she enjoys
photography, writing and illustrating children’s books, and
obsessively watching “Project Runway”. During the day,
she walks many, many dogs.
She holds a B.A. in English from Hunter College.
J.E.Jackson
The Night Conductor
On a midnight train to nowhere
I met you-you stole my pen.
I was working on a crossword puzzle.
You were working out the meaning of light.
Not that I was impressed.
I just wanted to know a fourteen-letter word for the ruler of Qatar.
You said, "Sometimes I get lonely,"
and with that you drew me
in. Or maybe it was the way
you kept falling out of
your chair, I'm not sure.
Was it the intoxicating proof
of your breath? Or how
you pretended I was a lamp
shade every time your girlfriend came around.
"Oh that, that's just a lampshade," you'd say, and then you kicked me
in the shin, as if to prove I was really only made of wood.
Or perhaps it was the way
you slept, small and curled and
at my feet. The whole time swearing and muttering strange things to
yourself, until finally you reached up like a flag one lone hand.
On Brothers and Sisters
In the house
where I grew up
there is a certain
glass back door
that my brother and I
each tangled with.
He was running away from
Kevin “Coo-coo Bird” Beavers, I was
letting out the dog.
My brother slammed into
the door. Full speed. It made sense
that it broke,
into a bazillion pieces.
That his artery got nicked
on the glass, and
bled and bled and bled.
But when I came along,
two years later,
my parents had replaced
the glass, with what had
been sold to them as “unbreakable”,
“safety glass” they called it,
and yet I only pushed against it,
gently, once, to let the dog in.
But yet again, it shattered, the shard
went in my wrist,
and once again, blood, stitches,
Emergency Room—The Whole Nine Yards,
and my poor mother with her
two children, both times,
holding back the blood.
And then there we were with
the same scar, my brother and I,
his deeper, but mine longer
with ten fresh black spider
threads still in it. And my brother,
leaning over, scowling, telling me
“you copied.”
On a midnight train to nowhere
I met you-you stole my pen.
I was working on a crossword puzzle.
You were working out the meaning of light.
Not that I was impressed.
I just wanted to know a fourteen-letter word for the ruler of Qatar.
You said, "Sometimes I get lonely,"
and with that you drew me
in. Or maybe it was the way
you kept falling out of
your chair, I'm not sure.
Was it the intoxicating proof
of your breath? Or how
you pretended I was a lamp
shade every time your girlfriend came around.
"Oh that, that's just a lampshade," you'd say, and then you kicked me
in the shin, as if to prove I was really only made of wood.
Or perhaps it was the way
you slept, small and curled and
at my feet. The whole time swearing and muttering strange things to
yourself, until finally you reached up like a flag one lone hand.
On Brothers and Sisters
In the house
where I grew up
there is a certain
glass back door
that my brother and I
each tangled with.
He was running away from
Kevin “Coo-coo Bird” Beavers, I was
letting out the dog.
My brother slammed into
the door. Full speed. It made sense
that it broke,
into a bazillion pieces.
That his artery got nicked
on the glass, and
bled and bled and bled.
But when I came along,
two years later,
my parents had replaced
the glass, with what had
been sold to them as “unbreakable”,
“safety glass” they called it,
and yet I only pushed against it,
gently, once, to let the dog in.
But yet again, it shattered, the shard
went in my wrist,
and once again, blood, stitches,
Emergency Room—The Whole Nine Yards,
and my poor mother with her
two children, both times,
holding back the blood.
And then there we were with
the same scar, my brother and I,
his deeper, but mine longer
with ten fresh black spider
threads still in it. And my brother,
leaning over, scowling, telling me
“you copied.”
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