Beneath these
satin sheets,
my memory
flutters like
little birds on
indigo nights.

Folded wings
rest in my
mind's eye.
Fingers itch with
visions,
Delta of Venus,
orchids in bloom,
wet with the
sticky dew.

I grip my
virility
and begin
a slow
waltz...
It feels so
good.

Layer upon layer
Petals close embrace.
Like
my lovers closing arms.
A rose fully open.
Waiting… to be plucked.
Red rose from lover’s Eden
Fover your gardener I’ll be.


Shell ✨🐚

My breath shatters the
frozen ice of all
distinction.

Tomorrow I will clean
   the corridors of my
thoughts but tonight
   I will wait for the
mordant memories.

The red roses, in the
garden you planted
for me over

fifty years ago
do not grow inside
the cold Wisconsin
   battering on my
    
window tonight

I have no Valentine
     from you today.

No nor a whisper of
the door
closing behind you
  By the quiet nurse

so long ago.


Caroline Shank
2.14.2024

I’m not going to be famous
selling strawberries
writing poems
or preaching till we perish
especially, not through
this poem
your poem
or any we may cherish
considering the pressure I am under
and the number
of one more follower
to follow me
while I follow your poetry
I may write and write I do
because like you I like them too
and though they may be the best
I know I can be my worst critic
whether I loathe or I like it
I wont lay my pen to rest
with my words and ways
till then, I’ll have my own novels read
and applaud my own plays
and be famous
in my own head

Inlands some, where TimesX lost
between Valentines and St Patrick's
I want to try to justiFly