Always

(medicine in the
deserts of
burning flesh
sorrowing souls.)

People to treat.
Lives lost or given.
The cold winter sand
forever in your shoes,
your pockets.

Your mouth the harbor
for the grit of every day.
You spit it out in the

***** cups, cracked with
the rush of
hurrying mouths.

Tents breath in and
out, their ***** flabby
from pawing hands.

Today is always unknowing
if the sky will save this
planet of death.

This day of unforgiving.

The supplications of
hands

covered

In blood.


Caroline Shank
10.15.2024

I.
Optimal allocation for partially replicated database systems on tree-based networks (1992)

My father the mathematician
his carapace beard slow-stained

with moon brook as he worked
at his pine wing desk, an old door

perching on cheapo steel cabinets
with a squat beige computer

whose fan hummed hymns,
strumming the dark.

II.
A lower bound on the probability of conflict under nonuniform access in database systems (1995)

Long drive in smooth maroon
the university belted by fog

Mandelbrots of rain blotching
the windshield face.

Dad sat and glowed with glass
commingled with chalk scent

I became part of Andre's posse
in an atrium bleached with cold air.

III.
Minimizing message complexity of partially replicated data on hypercubes (1996)

When Dad moved out of the farmhouse
we realized he couldn't see well anymore

a thick glaze of dust sticking to everything
coffee mugs of bourbon seeding every room,

******* glaucoma; pride and denial
kept him thorny, but my sister got it done.

When the ***** finally claimed him,
he vanished into the air like pipe smoke.

Feet and toes dipped into throws of milky waves and morning haze

and pelicans on a tiny isle,
and houses staggered over cliffs

along the shore, and seagulls drift
and hours wane, our legs yearn

to stand, to stretch, and we are swift
beneath the day, I want to burn.

Clinically depressed
the clinic's a frickin mess
clinician's under stress
popping patients' cipralex
at her dinky off-white desk
she's still wearing last night's dress
reminiscing on the days
when she just tried her best

Head won't give it a rest
wishing she'd failed the test
could have been an insta queen
at least got in on the tiktok scene
instead she feels bereft of the chance
to take a breath

She'd rather take a slap
than see another fat smackhead
but she has to pay the rent or
start living in a tent
"It's a living"
that's her mantra
written on the pens
and every one they send
is another couple cents

So she just pretends that
what she does makes sense
punters in
prescriptions out
no time to make amends
patience measured in pence
she can potentially spend
perpetuating searches for
that promised happy end

stars in my eyes
like headlights flashing
leaving me standing
like a deer in the street
its the things we see
through tear-webbed lashes
stretched out rays when i blink
and the wind picks up
if i were skinnier
id be a leaf in the breeze
but my solitude grounds me
land locks me
docks me like a boat at a pier
and there are no
stars tonight
just polyfill with spiders in them
just puffs of smoke and pollution
bringing whispers
bringing caresses
sprinkling the earth
and flooding my bathrooms

my right knee is ******
i'm not sure why?
it's too late now.