This morning I watch
knitted clavicles of light
hurtle in and up the wall
in my half-packed
living room, while cubes
of fresh spring hew
strongholds in the
birded birch yard.
But I am ready to leave
all of it for the ruptured
gray weeks, the rain lash,
the fog bars, the burnt sea,
the little tilts of rainbow -
for her - would she have me?

is a circle.
The
minefield of
breathing.

I inhale.

The rasp of a door

hinge.

Gone to rust.

Pieces of
time.

Jigged thoughts…

clang of
chains.

Soggy Days.

Lie wet
leaves.

Rain..

The air pushed.

Behind me a
young woman

falls.


Caroline Shank
9.24.22

there are
seven wonders of the world
and I am sitting here
eating dinner
trading words
passing time
with three of them.

afterwards
I regretted the words
that I had said
but not half as much as
I regretted
the life
that I had led.

I know I hold the brush
but I cannot paint a stroke of paint
upon the canvas of out life
our colours are unclear
our future blurred in fear
and fuchsia
nobody can live in fuchsia
no matter how hard they try.

I loved you
for about an hour
on a random beach in Dublin
sometime around 1979
or there about
friends say it never happened
I was too young
but it did
I know
I loved you
for about an hour
on  a random beach
sometime, somewhere , somehow
I loved you
for about an hour
on a random beach in Dublin
around 1979 or just before.

You talk about love like it’s real
like folk can be happy
together
you talk about love
like it’s okay to feel
happy
you talk about love
like it’s real
like things can work out
okay
like no one hates the day
you talk about love
like it’s real
like it could happen anyway
any day
anytime
anywhere
how bizarre
you talk about love like
it’s real.