I don't want you to find me
in these later years.  I can't
cry anymore when I think
of you.

We were young in the music
of our age.  We danced (so
closely) to "Me and Mrs Jones"
The top room of the familiar
bar where we were all alone
except for one couple playing
pinball.

I'm broken finally. The white
hair, the pounds padding me
like Bart on the field.
I'm broken in my heart, the
one place you only have touched.

I am broken in the days and
nights.  The flesh colored
clouds slide over us
as it did so long ago.  
I can't sing even
to the  songs we loved
as each one of us moved in the
roiling grass.  Shattered, I
am veined with the silver of old mirrors.

Stopping by the road in the
summer rain I sigh the
loss of many things.  Things
chipped now and cracked.
My face falls, like shards of
failed glass.  I
cry out for you.

Words are frail bones.
I fail to reach them although
they stain my  
breaking heart.

As my husband slips in
the mire of Parkinson's,
he will not know me
very soon.

I write about you with
capricious longing. The
touch you gave  of
seeing me home.
The Marijuana was not
that strong.  

Don't cry for me
Alabama. I am
here where you
left me.




Caroline Shank
September 15, 2021


This is a new poem I am trying
to know.  A broken memory
that slides up and down
the heart of me.