Realization begins with a grassy
patch on the cheeks.  A loosening
chin.  Our eyes tear
a little in the woven years.
We get older, better.  We stop
weeding.  Time is represented
by the passage of linear
rows.  Memory, imagination and
the strings of movement flare.
Answers streak the imagination's
runways.  We used to be whatever we
were in those early youthful afternoons.
Now the flowers are loose and confident.
We plow the past in conversation.

Look at us.  Our age signs
the geography.  We rise from
a packed landscape, determine
the motion of the earth.  The
winds of the last forty years
blow from behind.

We form together.  
Clouds gather us in.
We raise flags.
Our answers are on the
breezes of the past.

We sing.
Our anthem is
a song
for the ages.


Caroline Shank

I wore blue flowers on my dress,
white flip flops on my feet.
I call this summer casual.
That was my dream. You
are not buried yet.  Soon.
I see me in the chaple
working the crowd.
Flowers in my hair.

You died on a Tuesday morning.
I was eating pizza.    I looked and
saw the flat face of death in your
beautiful eyes. You had no response.
I sat in the chair I occupied while
you were alas living.

There was no way of knowing your
deeps and shallows ebbed to the
middle of Tuesday.  There was no
more of you in my eye and I was
quiter than ever.

My dress is in the mail, my shoes
are in the closet.  I will wear blue
flowers on my dress and white  
sandals. I call this liberation.
I am released from dull gray and
the dumb dun serge you wanted
me to wear.

I sit here without tears having cried
for two months.  You are long away
and if not thinking of me you are
at last  peacefully free of trying.


Caroline Shank

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