When I was a young girl I wondered
If I would find you.  I looked in the grass,
on the horizon, where the land woke
up each day.  I dreamed of your darkness,
of your hands sculpted by David, your
laugh.

I was younger then than I wish I had
been.  I saw your curls in the glass
of my future, your amber eyes stolen
from the Baltic. You guarded my time
telling me that of course I was happy
once but my mother took me
/
away.  She watched me for you on every corner of Chicago. Looked for your blue
eyes in the stranger she finally
married.

But he wasn't you and the penalty
was high.  My youth was her batter
which mixed with gin and
codeine she drank daily.

I found you in a hallway walking
toward me.  It was on a holiday
granted to me once.  I knew you
before the world was made.  The
glimpse of your silent betrayal
left me envying younger women
Before.  I knew you
In the hours of my life at last,

When I was a young woman you
found me. I was braille, you were
soft.  You left me in the tears
of another waif the dust blew in.



Caroline Shank

It was long ago, (I know
I've told you this so often
Craig. ) in a bar, in a night of
Sirius. He wanted only to go
home.  

He left me alone in the dark rain.
My calls refracted back. I ran to
find him. There was
only my voice.

You found my life boring, (Repetition serves those who are paid. ) It
hung over me like a dripping faucet
in a lonely home where once we'd
danced.

You remember now?
You allowed me a random
philosophy
(the therapy of Jung)
where once I'd died.

I am old now, my
memories stray, so..
I will leave
long before
You miss me.


Caroline Shank

It is not love that breaks your heart,
Craig, it's the blankness rubbed
against sunlight on the window,
when the smear appears.  

Or not that but it is the redaction
of a life organized around
a thought ordained. I keep
telling you, the evidence doesn't lie.
It was planned and signed,
that there was no future at all.

"Go" , you say, "you can do this"

But it's the mask I never saw you see,  
it's the slice of the night's
warm wind which once
caressed me that now leaves me alone,
the darkness between
breaths bewildered
by his speech.

It's not love that breaks your
heart, it's the scream
in the ephemeral

moment




Caroline Shank

My thoughts morph into
the stuff of a Summer
afternoon:

A long time ago, before
I grew white tendrils of age in my hair, and that still lone Gardenia softened our song,  you played with me in the sand. We opened up hidden evenings and my only thought
was to be touched by you.

Your rough skin was pocked with Marijuana seeds and the twigs of collaboration.  Sky-high and pinked our conversation was in your cupped hands on my soft walls.

Is it any wonder
that I loved your song?

Now I am stuccoed and old and it is in my heart alone that this explication of a memory
remains alive
in the

crevasses.


Caroline Shank
6.10.21

The clock no longer chimes.
The dinner bell no longer rings.
These sounds on which I so
depend
have
gone.

Your place is in the grave
with flowe#sș00rs down u ND er
A ND unanswered prayers¢.


Caroline Shank

Long days.  Night slithers through
the door and I reach for you.
I believe in the wisp of
twilight, the smell of dope
and your arm around my
shoulder. The cross we bear.

The map of night is written
and I must go.  Never, the
tears.  I stare at your mouth.
We kiss the chalice of each
others love.  The mass of
yesterday sanctified a long
litany of love unanswered.

I hate the sound of the bells.  
I am brought to my knees. An old woman genuflects, A tear falls.
I confess my sins but never
you.  

You, you belong to the
dusking dreams.  

Caroline Shank

Sometimes I see you dancing.
Your arms are strong and hold
me up.  I would have
fallen without you, tumbled down
like a doll flung away.

Sometimes I see your strong
walk. You were my bear in the
warm summer of my 27th year.

You are still playing
music in my old age.

Sometimes I see you
dancing
in the night,
in the rain.

Our
song,

floats away

like smoke

in the air that

I breathe.




Caroline Shank