Josie Rozell: 2 poems

Enchanting Things

Here I am			on a road
of rising stone 		and leaves
when I see you 		        and stop. 
Heart beat – 			who could you be? 
A single fissure in the core may know the mind 
that passes through my bones, when the words upon your
brow break my breath in half. This is no year of the
crab. This is the lion in flight, the end in sight –
the pathway ends with the gulp of shoes, which skid to
a swift halt. Sloping fall contains nothing like those
heaven shoes contain. Breath backfires into breath – the
systematic body handed spare batteries.
Rain kisses 			skuttle the
stone. I can 			breathe again.

Hands Together 

I want to hold all things at once 
caught snug between forefinger and thumb. 
never again to let tears slink
languidly down an empty face.
The wave 		rears up in turmoiled angst to
crash 			upon the heart of the pale surfer
who waits 		trusting no one around her. 
Have the 		lessons been written that must be
learned? Oh, little mouse. You have taught the world to
cater their whims to the toothpick, to loathe
your litany just as you do. Clutching the
ocean in a hollow fist is your way
	to hold it in. Half escapes and falls to
	the seafloor and half absorbs forever more.

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_{Josie Rozell is a Hawaii-based writer and poet, and winner of the 2018 AWP Journals Award for her piece, “Icarus and I”, near-death in Bosnia 30 years after the Bosnian Civil War. She is the managing editor of the Hawai’i Review of Books and the author of Articulated Soul (2021) and the forthcoming American sonnet collection, Deep Breath (summer 2022) from Ambitious Storytellers. Google “Josie Rozell poetry” for more or visit her literary madhouse: www.thehydrogenjukebox.com.}