‘Poem That Begins with Unfinished Business’ & Collected Poems

Lindsay Liang

Poem That Begins with Unfinished Business

There is a limit to what I want you to tell me. Closing 

the stage on a Friday night, you text me to say that 

a stench of weed has permeated the bar set. Grips 

and Electrics are last out, first to party over sets 

they consider their own. If only it were otherwise– 

had I instead been the one to open up our relationship 

in the brightest winter, the darkest season of my depression. 

I’m sorry. I am no longer speaking of work. I am

thinking of your other lover laughing when you discover 

her uncle has a vibrating bed and you are staying 

there tonight. I am having trouble even making eye 

contact with other folks I care about at what has been 

our favorite bar. I went to the dentist and my 

extracted space of tooth hurts, still, days later, 

the trench of gum, the pipeline to my heart.

After Five Dates

the weeklong

silence has turned

yellow banana 

black if you

would come by 

to turn the mush

into bread I want 

to taste happiness 

again your teeth 

on the tendrils

of my tongue

if the mosquitos 

could stop sticking

on the screen door

of my psyche 

sucking the marrow

from summer heat 

the swatter always 

hovering we talk 

of rain its deception 

a vow of renewal

enough to flood 

my dopamine 

basin without

further promise

of precipitation

and you

Froggy’s Fridays

At Froggy’s we swim through tadpole crowd

on karaoke night– wet lily pad floors owned

by the county toad, who would never be caught 

inside, not with all the green croaking we partake

in, years past the age the log is just a prop. 

It is not a rite of froghood to feel a belonging– 

on weekends we transform into who we want to be. 

New Year’s Eve, 2021

I want to sleep through the ball drop again

because my other plans are in the avocado 

pit. Hold my own hand, kiss my own face 

on the world’s jumbotron. For voyeurism.

Red wine lips on white pillowcase,

thread hanging off my bed. Next year I 

will scoop my meager loneliness out 

from the bottomless laundry and fold 

until I find my good, blue poinsettias 

to wear. Maybe I will talk to someone 

else’s god on the telephone, ask my mom 

how she’s doing so far. Because the rain 

has splattered all across the window. 

The closer I get, the less I see of everything.

After-Work Imperative

avoid nights we strive for 

destruction of mind of body

each time with tequila

lifeboats after rough 

working waters soon 

as we reach shore

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 ITERANT, Skipjack Review, and The Indianapolis Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee. (jamescroaljackson.com)