The climate crisis has already arrived.
–-Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, The Guardian

Before the era of megafires
was an era normalized. Before

then, a different era normalized. Ad
infinitum. Death Valley approaches

a hundred thirty degrees and
we complain that our air

conditioner does not suffice,
so we buy a new one,

new ones built and used
until we buy new ones stronger.

Right now, in San Carlos, my sister
says the air around her is

fine– just a little bit smoky,
some fire on the periphery.

I don’t want to tell her to move
from the mountains. Where

would she go? My niece,
too, growing fast

as a wildfire.

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 The River, Mangrove Review, and Packingtown Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Nashville, Tennessee.