I miss skin that doesn't crinkle.
The kind the doesn't matter
what I'm wearing.

I miss beepers. The 7730 hello
page.  The calls from people
wanting to go out to eat.

I miss moving like the wind
blowing daisies and spoors
of dandelions

What about singing in the
snow you ask?
The farther my poor article
could reach in the total
silence of the winter.

Most of all i miss warm
saltwater swims in the
early mornings, coffee
strong with sweetener.

I miss.you kissing me
with the wayward wind
playing.

The sirroco of my life
began in a dream.

It will drift like
phosphorescence
unconfused with

Poetry


Caroline Shank
7.28.2023

Your crotch seared into my
afternoon.

If you must wear shorts on your
fat legs please pity the members
of your audience.  

Restaurant's wooden warm
summer tables,  A patio for
my pleasure.  When in you
came. I never saw your face
until the squirming crotch
across the nearby table,
where you sat, friends like:)
you who couldn't see the
dance of fat falling out of
your shorts.  The camel
toed and the chats of friends.

Poured & drunk with no
where through the
sorry exhibition.

Caroline Shank
July 23,  2023

Absolved of all guilt I have
passed the threshold of
old age.  I am a Crone and
I choose who to love.  

I choose you.  Unintentional
as this late in life emotion is, I
follow it to the rise and
fall on the tides waves that

rock you to sleep
My younger perfect
Incarnation.  You to
whom I cannot touch

I rest in the God of
my unreason for out of my
heart stepped you and

I rise each day just to see
you pursue a life out of

all unknowing

me.


Caroline Shank
July 17, 2023

Things On My Living Room Wall

I collect things, clocks and chickens
mostly.

         The secret to things is the
way they (you) fit in the space
wherein my life, refracted like a
          Kaleidoscope on a
winter afternoon stretches to
touch me.

        Day (Love) is a mirror, a silver
lined looking glass placed like a
trophy over the catchall mementos
          of (you) the times (we) spent
leaning over the bridge.

My frames
tilted to the downside of yesterday
.        
          I thought the assorted colors
were (our) memories until someone

          traced the lines of (simply)
life between the slats of my

          memory indicted of
your coins to pay the porter.


Caroline Shank
7.4.2023

To be without a reason
to be.

To be a worn inside out
kind of being.  To miss you mostly
your absence, like
falling water,

puddles.

You make the tears
want to fall.  You slant from the
pictures .
Grant me Oh Lord a minute.

I am trimmed in half.  Your
consecrated remains on
the bookshelf.

Tomorrow is the Blessing
that holds the map of
living without you.

You walked in the Garden.
You never said that kissing
was underrated.  It's how

you left in your bed in a
May afternoon.  The
last time to say I loved

you turned away.  Was
life with me so hard?

You ran to God to save
your demented soul.

I watched from my window
As

you

Flew away.


Caroline Shank
6.24.2023

I want to travel with you
in Summer or a Winter along
the pavements
thick with the sounds of
falling feet, trampled dreams,.
The detritus of lives lived by
the thin soled.

I offer you old hands to hold,
Wishes warmed by heat.
The loved fingers that will
undo you In the theater of
your imagination.

We will talk of things imagined.
Our stories flung into the gas
fire of old age. We will go
places only books invite us
into, brush skin of
our fine lines.

We hold
onto the strings of time

for

as long as

galaxies of desire

rock us.


Caroline Shank
6.22.2023