Green-stroked leaf
over lapis door
with four panels -
black vinyl
perches shining,
a motorcycle,
a motorcycle.

It enters her eye,
the day's spillway
laid down
to beige page.
Color and form,
thrown from her hand,
thrown from her hand.

Blue dregs are hanging
each to each on the line,  

& ash tendons pull
as cirrus takes the stair.

Overflowing night is emptied
in the twine of our sleep,

& we wake, suspended
in our own eye.

There is a silver splash
perched in the bathroom

where the hand finds itself
encased in breath,

a throwaway gesture that drifts
over to the new corner,

& finds shape as your face,
shielded in cloud.

is a circle.
The
minefield of
breathing.

I inhale.

The rasp of a door

hinge.

Gone to rust.

Pieces of
time.

Jigged thoughts…

clang of
chains.

Soggy Days.

Lie wet
leaves.

Rain..

The air pushed.

Behind me a
young woman

falls.


Caroline Shank
9.24.22

A chance meeting at a bar,
   chatting under pouring pine
& knotted wooden star:
   To new friends and a shared shrine;
   to love aging well, like old port wine.

do they know of the uproar,
the unrest,
the tirelessly shifting waves
of wind against the window?
So harsh, all through the day,
but it is a severity I can feel safe by,
watching the gusts and hearing the voices
while, in this alcove, everything is still.

gently, I devour
the music that you play

the strumming and the sway,
the things you can convey

subtle, but the power
of the songs, the silent way

you make the unsaid there
and it becomes

real, authentic, ours.

what is existence?
the mountain's life in mine is so very slow,
but even it sees the same, unending horizon as I do.

since i was a little girl,
i've been a very good actress
earlier in life, i was a golden girl
way ahead than my peers, a shining over-achiever
good in being too much, too much unlikeable

in my teenage years,
i played the role of misery
with grey clouds hanging over my head
custom-made puddles beneath my feet
and hand-drawn cross-stitches on my left wrist

through the end of adolescence,
i starred in a star-crossed romance
in which i was a frustrating lover
the "always leaving others" lover
the "you will only understand my action when we're in our 40s" lover

now that i am a 2 years old adult,
i am acting like a lost child in a big playground
mind spiraling down the slide
shaky judgements on the see-saw
the fool climbing the monkey-bar

man, i am such a star...