It was hard to be wise....
You must eat change and endure
-Robinson Jeffers

Unzip this skin and see
your words impaled
on these tusks of heart:

curled myrtle wreathes hung
so pretty on a chamber door.
Look deeper - I am stuffed full

of your words, crushed up
like newspapers so they all fit,
the ink staining my fingers.

Unzip me and see them all
scattered like black poppy seeds,
like black ash on the wall

of the oven. You left them
all behind without asking,
left me too full of them.

I tried to tattoo over them,
I tried to ***** them out
with scotch (O how I tried

& tried and tried)
I tried to rake them away,
I held funerals for them

black wax candles, hex-moons,
but they never slept, and soon
they itched their way free.

Come get them -
you must be running out
of new things to say.

For Eddy Walker

I lost my mind today
for a couple hours

I laid there but not-there,
disconnected, wires downed,

half-thoughts slipping through teeth
the other half dying between my face

& the puckered ceiling's death kiss.
Uncle Eddy is parted from us,

this goodless, badless ball
hanging blue in black nothing:

sea-stained vacuum, clouded, waxy,
moon flicking round it like a moth,

even as we scream toward the great lamp -
No: pull back camera, rack focus:

this hush-centered city
dreams itself away at 2 am,

grease-legged streets, rivets of dust,
as we all sail on. I'm alone on M street,

on a mercy mission. I think of Eddy
in all of the basements he saved with story,

of his chuckled smile
& endless cigarette puppies.

Now the lung is empty:
song lyrics from another room,

can't make them out as Eddy handed me
a guitar with the hand not holding a beer.

I played into the crowd wall,
Eddy laughed, laughed in the corner.

I hold no high grievance
in my heart this morning:

not for the ex-wife combing
smoke signals from an outer reef

not for the crass jackhammer
breaking the city's black bones,

not for the fresh pink sky
that won't turn blue for me,

not for the dying elm leaf
that fell across my feet as I walked

over chilled rye grass, breaking
the breeze in two with my chest.

I. You Will Make A Name For Yourself

She said my name - it stuck there -
a jot of air caught in space between us -
it hung there, it's still hanging there,
moss growing over the truth of it,
rain chipping away at the crags,
my name waiting to be claimed.

II. Success And Wealth Are In Your Fate

There is a hill where I go walking
that is covered in grave slants -
headstones effaced by scraping snows -
money and marble sliding green and down -
so many dead hands bidding to shape
their fate - they're shushed by vines.

III. You Will Receive A Surprising Prize

In an open window across the street -
creamy unlidded eye in beige brick face -
a woman has showered and is toweling off
slowly and deliberately - almost burlesque -
as the sun cuts morning's cusp
in bright-grown slices - coming for her.

A shadow spread over us
as we lay there in the fields.

It ate flower, grass, and hill
with ohaguro teeth.

The world was soft and chilled
in the belly of the shadow -

we hid our hands
under each other's shirts.

When it moved we chased,
laughed among blonde furrows,

stumbled in the gritted ruts -
but it was gone. I think

we both know what it meant.
Where are you, now?

It's a quarter after six, on an August
evening of my 76th year.   I drink
a sherry.   Here,  my feet
are free of the socks I insist on
wearing,  I am smoking.

The entertainment
for tonight is planning tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the last mention of
Summer.

You took me into custody, left
my life's belongings behind.
Sans identification,  sans valuables,
sans feeling.

Now there is only the zeitgeist of
this age.   The long lobes of wise men
and the sagging ******* of yesterday.
I write in cursive so you will have
to talk to me.  

I am the last syllable of my family.
The seventies remain as a bastion
of understanding.  Do not blame

me for remembering you.

I have forgotten many things but not the warm Summer night.   It creeps over me like your

hand.


Caroline Shank
8.15.2022