Diamond-Shaped Boxes

because I repeatedly disregard that which is shaped like a diamond
to be a diamond,

I will flirt with the skateboard girl
who zooms away

& lament our love, lost
as yesterday’s blackened ganja.

living on the beach,
scraping sand
for a seagull’s Dorito–

we are crevices in the Santa Monica boardwalk.
we slip out from ourselves
without knowing

yet know ourselves sunken
deep in the tar ocean
& yet, somewhere, still there

from many years of being the ones
who collect what others discard,

making space in our own diamond-shaped boxes

James Croal Jackson lives for art, adventure, whiskey, and music. He has been widely published and his poems have recently appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Whale Road Review, and 99 Pine Street. He lives in Columbus, OH. Find more of his work at http://jimjakk.com.