"Memory is more indelible than ink."
—Anita Loos

~
Europe, after the rain,
the sun lending warmth and comfort.
fringes come into focus.
shadow journal,
fiscal dreams,
becoming ****** lines on a page;
procession bells
for young brides,
veiled in lace.
a touch from her
outstretched hands,
this honeymoon phase
running up the thigh,
the holding quite still until
she smiles for pendulum.
at first light, breakfast in bed,
granting pastel wishes on
boxing night,
then a letting go of the kite string.

new fingers in the medicine bottle,
tiny geometries
inside a house of reciprocal numbers.
paradise in mnemonic children:
cartwheels and handstands,
coloring books of
neglected spaces,
future ruins.
one hundred violins
play to isles of ignorance,
stray embers settle
along the solemn Chemin De Fer (railway).
a catalogue of afternoons
on the bike path
thru propeller seeds and dragonflies.

arriving in the haloed flesh:
skin dive,
the place of couloir descent;
**** beach,
the place of odd glances;
gun chamber,
the room of secondary light;
all horizon variations.
an algebra of darkness,
this dense Roman twilight,
their exiles unreflected
in blind lanterns.
our brightness will become
refracting silhouettes,
a broken yolk in the incendiary sky.
~

the cult of the ideal woman.
silent era mignon.
pass the baton.

a little diplomacy.
a little electricity.
and a waterfall of curls.

she moves with the fayre.
I see her idling on Fifth Avenue
and at work behind the counters
of the stores.

besotted men plant young, leafless trees upside-down,
roots in the air, simply because
she wants it that way.

a groundbreaking end
to The Broken Oath,
and her name on the credits
for the very first time.

screens, fans, and umbrella stands.
or maybe lilies in a field of seclusion.
she is stardom.
she is the eternal question.

tonight the sky.

dark palette.

the stars are projectors.
the paintings of them are in
perpetual motion,
carry the zero.

conflicted still life.
of spathodea.
of pomegranate.
of her own folded-up *****.

it's all in how you interpret
the brushwork.
girls can tell.

a reassuringly dull sunday
turns to intrigue.
the busy girl buys beauty.

people are places and things.
lost affections in a room
in need of images
or at least explanations.

she looks for it.
she listens for them.

the sound of existing.
the sound of a quiet room.
a rainstorm or possibly the sound
of someone taking a shower.

blind little rain.

autosleeper lowers her head.
the economy of sleep patterns.
and little else celsius.

tonight the sky.

tomorrow a place where
one can ruin oneself,
go mad, or commit a crime
with paint.

It's getting dark early again. The
street lamps are on by dinner.
Soon the memory of piles of
leaves, the smell of Fall and
the call to jump in the whispering

auburn heaps of my youth
would jolt me.

I am old now and fat.  The
ritual of Autumn's call to
the dark evenings that were
an invitation to the holidays,
is a calling cocktail.

The rains drained the ashes
into the sidewalk gutters.  The
hopscotch grid fades as day
light melts and I lose the
game.

Games are like drifts of scents
across the light post's shadow.
They are the ephemeral
recipes of my New York
youth. I walk to the edges
of the grass reading the
folded paper fortunes that

told me I would marry Jack
someday. I didn't. I threw
the lined prediction in the
leaves, scuffed my brown
shoes on the sidewalk

never dreaming that real
life would crinkle like the
ruled paper forgeries.



Caroline Shank

Summer Night

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