Poetry by Stephen Jackson
Diagnostic
The MRI technician tells me not to swallow
for three minutes while the machine maps
my interior betrayals. I've grown skilled
at holding still for others to witness
what's collapsing. My spine appears
on the screen like a strange alphabet,
each vertebra a letter in a language
I was never taught to read.
What does it mean when your own cells
decide you are the foreign body?
I've become fluent in this vocabulary:
*inflammation, stenosis, radiculopathy*—
words that sound like distant planets
where nobody remembers how to dance.
The doctor says keep a pain journal,
but who wants to record their own erasure?
I remember when this body ran through rain,
when it knew pleasure without consulting
a list of consequences. Last night,
I watched my husband undress, noticed
he's begun to turn away, as if my gaze
is an instrument that might detect
his own nascent disintegrations.
Two specimens, avoiding the microscope.
In the Absence of Gravity
The physical therapist presses his palm
against my spine, says relax into me,
let your body just hang there like wet laundry.
I want to tell him my bones have their own
memories, their own grudges. They don't trust
anything that promises relief.
On bad days, I fantasize about weightlessness—
how in space, astronauts grow taller,
their compressed discs expanding in the absence
of gravity. I would trade atmospheres
to feel my vertebrae unstack themselves like coins,
to float above this constant pull toward collapse.
My daughter traces her finger along
the ridge of my collarbone, asks
when I'll be fixed. I tell her bodies
aren't appliances. She doesn't understand
how something breaks without a sound,
without a visible fracture. Even now,
as I read her bedtime stories,
cells inside me are rewriting their endings.
Tonight, in dreams, my body remembers
its original architecture—pain-free arches,
the easy swing of limbs that once took
motion for granted. I wake to find
my husband's arm across my chest,
his weight both burden and anchor,
his breath teaching my lungs
the rhythm they sometimes forget.
Last Appointment
When the specialist says there's nothing more to try,
his voice sounds like a tide pulling away.
In the empty space that follows, I count
the ceiling tiles, notice a water stain
shaped like the continent I've never visited.
I've learned to translate disappointment
into manageable portions—this much for breakfast,
save some for the long afternoon hours.
The waiting room is full of bodies
in various stages of surrender or resistance.
We nod to each other, members of a tribe
with invisible tattoos, comparing notes
on which pharmacies deliver, which insurance
covers the devices that might extend
the warranty on our malfunctioning parts.
In the car, I press my forehead against the window,
watch my breath cloud the glass, then clear.
Cloud, clear. The body's small persistent magic,
even as the larger systems fail.
At home, I'll arrange my pills in their daily boxes,
little colored promises I no longer believe.
But I'll take them anyway, like communion wafers,
like love letters to organs that stopped listening.
Tonight, I'll sleep beside my doubt and pain,
my body's disloyal provinces. I'll wake
to whatever remains, gathering the scattered light
that still finds its way through narrowing passages.
This is not the story I would have written,
but I've learned to recognize my own handwriting
even as it changes, even as it fades.
Stephen Jackson is a musician and writer whose short fiction, poetry, and essays that navigate the terrain between the sacred and the mundane. Jackson’s published works include a collection of short stories, “Spring Variations.” His short fiction appeared in Black Fox Literary Magazine as well as the anthology “Ghosts, Echoes, and Shadows.” As a poet, Jackson has contributed to multiple anthologies, including Dawn Horizons, Bards Across the Pond, and Bayou Blues & Red Clay. His poetry has also appeared in the Miserere Review.
Arcturus 