Bedhead
Stephen Jackson
He drops lit matches into
a paper bag, swaggers past like a boy
fresh out of the bed
—better yet, a tent,
fifteen years old and new
to the melancholy moon,
he hangs his head like
we’d ever forget, a thief to the gallows,
a child at prayer,
faint scent of sweat and
dried-up come
that never disappear,
the smoke from the fire—
ache of our longing—still lingering,
still throbbing in his hair.
About the Author
Stephen Jackson grew up in Ohio and now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest. His poems appear in numerous magazines, journals, and anthologies from around the world, with more recent work in the UKs fourteen poems, Canada’s Prairie Fire, the International Human Rights Art Movement anthology, A Human Voice, and the Washington State Queer Poetry Anthology.