First in 10, do it again. No said
she to his ashes.  The twisted
tale of tomorrow is laid over
today.  The premature moment
of death's blue face took you

to the painted tales of God's
permissions.  Go back to the
mausoleum's privacy.  

If it's tomorrow you could have
meant No.  The bed is unused.
She slept once in a chair and
your ghost brought whiskey.
Tomorrow

is for waking.  The green and
red of your container loosely,
on the shelf, waits to bring
her up to you.

Ring the bell the dead said
when you were new and
not yet freed from the life's
ordained limit

Bury her far away.  You will
not grab her dusty moans
for yourself

She never belonged

to

you

after all.

Caroline Shank
4.30.2023

revision April 27 2001

Recrudescence

(Recrudesce: to break out
again after lying latent or relatively inactive)

My friend,

There are doors which even you and I
have never opened. Shut for so many
years I am slammed back against
the sink of meditation.

Drawers unopened, their loneliness
stuck shut, slipped behind hinges.
Whole cabinets of dust. I wore many
selves. Stains hang here so far
removed from conversation
as to be little calciums. Calculi.
I rattle with little bones.

But since you ask….


Viz.:

When the gun was pressed against
my head I sat more still than a
fig on a summer tree, more breathless
than a whisper, more quiet than the
center of that fruit, It’s stem
my hair, I felt it's roots
take. I was sixteen.

I always wondered if the red dye
of my fear rubbed off on him.
He was silent, his face the only light
in the room, the phosphorescence of
madness. He couldn't find
me I guess, inside my aubergine
stillness.

He was a steel shaft in
his hand. At last he slipped
to the door.

In the end, unbreathing,
I saved him.

Ego te absolvo.

I was so afraid he wouldn't
like me anymore.

(Recrudesce: to break out
again after lying latent or relatively inactive)

My friend,

There are doors which even you and I
have never opened. Shut for so many
years I am slammed back against
the sink of meditation.

Drawers unopened, their loneliness
stuck shut, slipped behind hinges.
Whole cabinets of dust. I wore many
selves. Stains hang here so far
removed from conversation
as to be little calciums. Calculi.
I rattle with little bones.

But since you ask….


Viz.:

When the gun was pressed against
my head I sat more still than a
fig on a summer tree, more breathless
than a whisper, more quiet than the
center of that fruit, It’s stem
my hair, I felt it's roots
take. I was sixteen.

I always wondered if the red dye
of my fear rubbed off on him.
He was silent, his face the only light
in the room, the phosphorescence of
madness. He couldn't find
me I guess, inside my aubergine
stillness.

He was a steel shaft in
his hand. At last he slipped
to the door.

In the end, unbreathing,
I saved him.

Ego te absolvo.

I was so afraid he wouldn't
like me anymore.

I never saw things falling off
your shelves.  I didn't grasp
the hands of the clock who
bore witness to your aging,
frail thoughts.  The lack of
tremors fooled me.  The
mood swings were the
arthritis, oh! the pain.

I was so little then, so wrapped
up in my own sorrow.  I glanced
up and you diminished.  We were
old, our lives run out.  You took
the memory breach as a left
turn to Heaven. You cried when
you thought me unfaithful.

Never were you so.wrong.   I
served you silver but you
pointed to the floor.  My tears
were landslides.  Tomorrow
kept coming and the ashes
rested.  I walked out of the
chapel with sticks.

The years go on and I am

so still

in the

jungle,

pray to be eaten.


Caroline Shank
04.17.2023

I can't do death again. Unlike the
soldier on the garden path who
treads his life in patterns I have
no facility for more losses.

If life is a Waste Land don't
remind me.  The blooms fall
from the dogwood, the daffodil
peeks up between the sidewalks.

The footfalls down some passage
which I did not take are the
detritus of a long life unearned.

Don't offer me your hand today.
When I am through this garden
path of reminiscences I will
forever make your tea,but I
will not speak of him who
bought my life.  He whose

mistaken leaves of memory
are trodden cold in the
footfalls of the unearned past

My past, the illusion of it rose
before this likeness in the mirror.
To be wrong changed the brown
hair to white.  The pattern of
silk to cotton.  The warm sun
to cold .

Patterns formed in the sequence
of a love unfilled like the house
not bought or the flower unbloomed.

I can't do death again.  Go with me
along this garden path to the
opened door.  I will take your arm
and I will not look back .

Caroline Shank
04.15.2023

The triad of writer, lover and
the loved, she in the night of
raptors.

Gone the ability for thought,
the skin for touch, the heart
like unpainted bisque.

Her clammy hands, the drip
rivers ****** lacerations
born in the saunalike cataract
before, it seemed time
became the stranglehold
of Now.

Decades even later, years
uncover the silt of pain.

Together was not possible.

The rant began.

The cataract consumed her.
She unbreathed

goodbye.

Sphinx still
riddled.

She sat for me
clothed in sand

and waited

saecula saecularem

Amen,

Gentleman.

Last call.

Time gentleman.


Caroline Shank

I cannot exist in the
noise of
heavy
breathing.  

Nght exits.
The wrinkle of sheet,  the
impress of thick tuned
air waits a turning away.

If you don't find me at the
stair know that I loved you.
That the movement of crowds
turned me away

that I saw you wave tonight
to the woman whose
@
Wore your name.

Caroline Shank
April 9, 2023

Written for a contest.