Category: Poetry
Skin to Skin
by Josie
Hold hands with me. My feet won’t point in the direction I will them to, they’re on a loop and my mind is getting dizzy. Hold hands with me. I’ve been watching your stride. Your clean-limbed foot swing mesmerizes me. How can you keep so steady? Please hold hands with me.
Crash
by Josie
That crash could’ve been an ancient computer tossed from the twentieth floor, the Hewlett-Packard bricks in vintage disarray, the collection of hipster hues in the hallway closet. It was that loud! The raised voices which follow make sense, as if a strong-armed woman in her own right rose up to her man and chucked his grandfather clutter out that living room window, smashing … Read More Crash
Late Afternoon
by Josie
The forest is quiet, refreshing in silence, solitude lingers amongst shaded grass. A young rabbit sniffs at the bubbling creek and takes her chance on the muddy shore. In the echoing sunlight the rabbit sips and is remarkably, brilliantly, a rabbit.
Rising
by Josie
High on a plump cloud she surveys the red earth beneath her. There are little inlets here & there, messages of irrigation, she notes the sweeping river, the dots of farmhouses, the field borders & she shakes her head to shepherd away the dips of a friendly cloud. Her wooden pencil, already discomposed with teeth marks, scribbles sharp against the clipboard.
The Stag and the Wave
by Josie
Fifteen years from now, a young stag will look over his tawny shoulder to his mother, standing pristine in the shadowy meadow, and wonder to his primitive brain why it is he feels as he does. The mottled sunlight shall cast her still and lithe and his own body will look mighty and strong.
Wah-Wah Sowahwah
by Josie
The things that woman can do with a trumpet— they say teach a man to fish but I say, give a girl a trumpet! She’ll call forth the inside animal to roar against the trees and slash long marks in the careful lawn. Roar! she trumpets, go forth and roar! The open air hears you and raises, the wind will gust that roar … Read More Wah-Wah Sowahwah
Heart Clench
by Josie
Dusty was the mindset I set before me my jaw so tight my temples blossomed like children splashing in puddles, my world went westward, huddled in southernlys I thought I’d grow old like this, I thought I’d shrink so little I’d become the dust in mind — But the car door opened wide and, with a haze of warmth, you appeared; heart clench, … Read More Heart Clench
The Flower and the Cyclist
by Josie
The wind lifts and gusts, a squeaky whine of bicycle tire on hot asphalt, she rides the air with bits of dust and street debris and the cyclist sweats the streets to puddles. Her lithe body is frosted and at float his lean frame bends like the letter P she buds so nearly at the ends his rusted fingers grip roughened handlebars.
Descending
by Josie
So it is with civilized care that I kneel down to the open blank pages of a crease-lined book and cast my memories in its bronze borders. You’re my marauder, my hopeless staircase looting the use from my crouching soul and leading me to dark places too deep to stay dark.
Look Up
by Josie
Only the birds carry the wind. With shrieks and shrills, they deposit their carriage amongst the palm trees, who— messengers themselves—gorge and sweep the leftovers into cracks of white-plastered windows. Dust, remnants of historic footstep fabrics, plays as if she has a choice; and with breathless youth flaps tiny wings and succumbs to the breeze. Dust is a messenger, too, brought long ago … Read More Look Up
