Josie Rozell

Balance

Centrefold exists only
in vinyasa yoga
and origami classes

give it up
to the genial violence
of the rope swing
that carries you to the netherworld

enjoy the wind
the wildness made stark by the sun
which stretches
webbed fingers towards your lungs.

The body, as a whole
is not symmetric.

You,
more than a body
but thusly housed
are likewise.

If We Must Be Caged

If we must be caged — let it not be in
steel, manufactured at the hands of a
mechanical animal howling bars
against bars for us to rest our hands upon.
If we must be caged — let it be with the
cloth we weave, the organic fragrance of
a wooded grid, a grin of flower on
flower surrounding us like a halo.
Let it be not the predecessor but
the current living within the soul that
shapes the bare clay with Mountain rain water.
Let form swallow function to perfection.
Let us put the cage into fourteen line
and leave the chaos ever there to fester.

Josie Rozell is a Hawaii-based mixed bag of adventure and the author of the poetry collection, Articulated Soul. She writes by night & takes x-rays of urinary tracts in cats for her side-hustle vet tech job, and she thinks nothing is quite so good as a down-beat and a surfable wave. Google “Josie Rozell poetry” for more poems, or visit her madhouse, TheHydrogenJukebox.com.