I remember you in
the striped backseat of Tony's
car. The red leather seat's squeak
on my cheek,
and the pearl white ghastly plastic
door handles crushed my head.
I remember.
you with your duck tail
Haircut, dark brown, greasy
with Brylcream..  
It was widely known in
those days how your deep
broken brown gaze was
turned on me one evening
when I was fourteen.

The summer was over and
Winter's
clouds were layered on like

a stripe of a
gray leather.
You used language,
harsh in hearing,.  
shallow in response.

The story
is an old one and people
told it of me, just the night when the
red plastic shined on my face,
like a stripe of a scarf.
When your second wife
was so sorry you died
before your silver dove flew
over and I  was waiting
for your

apology.  



Caroline Shank
May 2, 2022

I remember you in
the striped backseat of Tony's
car. The red leather seat's squeak
on my cheek,
and the pearl white ghastly plastic
door handles crushed my head.
I remember.
you with your duck tail
Haircut, dark brown, greasy
with Brylcream..  
It was widely known in
those days how your deep
broken brown gaze was
turned on me one evening
when I was fourteen.

The summer was over and
Winter's
clouds were layered on like

a stripe of a
gray leather.
You used language,
harsh in hearing,.  
shallow in response.

The story
is an old one and people
told it of me, just the night when the
red plastic shined on my face,
like a stripe of a scarf.
When your second wife
was so sorry you died
before your silver dove flew
over and I  was waiting
for your

apology.  



Caroline Shank
May 2, 2022

I dont want us to evaporate like the
last forlorn drops in the jar. The stuff
you can't reach.  It's when you throw
away the lingering remains of a
once future promise you shake the
meanings off slick with the wetness of tomorrow.

"Some may say I'm a dreamer but
I'm not the only one." You were
promise and gone before I drank
the last dark remains of my beer.
I sang the songs of unbelieving
in the moment before you left me
in the summer's late night rains.

We were spoken of by gods
and goddesses.  The language
was curious and fragrant. Full
and lyrical.  Did you lose their
song?  It was a fabulous song.
I believed in the tune we wrote
together. Tomorrow will fill our
throats with the flattened notes of
a once flying bird.


Caroline Shank
April 28, 2022

You're Doing it Again


You're doing it again,
that habit of pulling me over, the
kiss behind my ear where you.know
I will never tell. I watch you
as you try to lift me.

Uunwritten and unsung the sound
of your one hand clapping, my nod
that tells you to fire the cannons.
I am deaf now. I watch as
your familiar hand reaches away
for the face you tried to draw
so many times.

More than that it's the daylight's
fading fingers at my throat.
I whisper a melody you recognize.  
Tomorrow walks in on time every
morning and I wait to see if you
are willing with me or if your stroke
on my face will be the last mewling
at the edge of a lie.

Caroline Shank
April 28, 2022

I have seen the moments of my
lifetime flicker and I was afraid.
I have won at love. My hair fell
long on your shoulders and I
laughed to see such a sport.

I have seen rhe souls of loved
ones shivver but I was young
then. I did not know your
Pain. I never knew you in your
lighter days. My heart pumped and
yet I sang then in my ununderstanding.
You were plaid in your dimensions
and red were the heartbeats
of our shared misunderstanding.

My feet then, a true size 8, were
made for dancing. I stepped softly
on your shoes and we were sway
and music.  The night's of our
repeatable dance's reps. Holy
in the church of our souls.

You didn't die then though I wish
you had. A million little deaths
over the years of sadness.

You were erased on a Sunday
morning
by the ink of yesterday's

Betrayal

Caroline Shank
April 17.2022

COVID

I am thrown pieces of virus's
scalding puke that took me
down into the warehouse
of lost memory.

My head shakes for the tears
which pour from hollowed eyes
the lack of simple names,
numbers and the wrinkled
lists of my failures.

I am overthrown by my own
mystery.  My long list of
minutiae trips me.  I am
unconscious.  Nothing
that is me is the cling on
that is all I have or am.

Covid rakes my mind taking
with with it the night in the
hospital.   The nurse who,
I am told, joined me when
her tasks allowed.

It is too much  To be so
erased until you have to call
the bank and plead for your
self in the numbers behind
the buttons which charge
our lives with permissions.

I sent my self on a journey
to sound the deeps of my
sorry mind.  I cannot know
the contents I do not know.

I am forced into redundancy.
I repeat names
of people and things I cannot
hold. There is no place at the
table where I presided before
the colorless spread of sickness
took up residence in the days
of my 75 years.

I am wiped on the arm of
illness.  I sneeze at the
passwords that are lost into
the soup of confusion.  You don't
know the shapes of the
sick citizens of my aching
head. The red blood cells
which lined up only to
fall.  

I cannot remember you. I
try to fill in the narrative
of the several weeks
weaknesses.

I am pulled ahead by
you who have loved
me.  I take the minutes
of this experience with
you my listener into
a frail future.


Caroline Shank
4.14.22

Before life ended, proof that
you can't climb the rope of life
with greased thighs. ( Surprise!
I meant that.) I slid to the ground.

You weren't there.  Being There, to plagiarize a title from Kozinski, is not
the act of a shuffled life.  You had
gloves to touch me with and I saw the
rubbed toe of your captoed still
shinning.  One foot up and hurry
now. Watch me watching you.

I slipped. Startled by the squeal
of your Italian leathers I fell off.
No garden here.  Far from
a successful climb I saw you
lurch in derision.  I couldn't reach
you anymore.  A simple mark, a
symbol perched like a poem
on sadness.  

I wrote this for you. My  
sadness wraps around
tomorrow.  
I make goodbye
go like the wind.


Caroline Shank
April 6, 2022