I keep it closed and locked,
In an imaginary, leather binding,
With its many pages compressed,
So that memories far apart
Are easier to retrieve,
Like scooping pearls
and shells on the sand.
There are stories of great adventure,
Tiny incidents like crystals
Shivering in the sun.
Lovers I knew in ancient times
Sleep among the pages
But come to life as I read,
My eyes caressing them as
My hands once did their skin.
Colors of eyes and hair remembered
Leap to paint the air around me:
Yellow sunlight and bodies moving,
Both electric and languid
In tangled sheets or long grass
After passion passed.
Some flashed like fireworks,
But others burned long and slow,
Not ready to love, nor to let go.
Smiles across a playing field,
Surprise midnight visits on holidays,
Costumed for Halloween with tiny stars
That shimmered on the stairs next morning,
Or inebriate feasts on the Fourth of July,
Tanned in the water and soothed at night.
There are short liaisons with friends
And long affairs, living with lovers,
Imagining it lasting forever
And battling the serious and inane.
Thinking everything will say the same.
And underlining all these times
Is the solidity of just one true love.

Finished November 14, 2021

The day you walked in
Stood on my door
You were nineteen
I was twenty four.
A look at your face
Weakened my knees
In your sweet fairness
I experienced bliss.
Throbbed hard my heart
My body felt so light
That spelt the start
Of my love at first sight!
The day you walked in
There wasn't anymore
Happiness for nineteen
Peace for twenty four.

It is predawn and still dark outside
but I cannot sleep.
The cool of aching winter calls
but the oaks, still green,
soon their leaves will fall
like me who so easily slips away
from the grasp
of the universe
that always beckons me to join
the elements of its peace.

But too often
I choose the storms
the collisions
and scattering properties.

How sweet it is to close the distance
between us
to find each other
and dwell together
in moments of love, respect,
mutual admiration,
and laughter
that seem so rare
out there,
to abide in sweet and precious harmony
for a while.

There was a man come wandering
by with silver heels and loudly.
It was a Sunday and he asked me
to dance.  We tangoed through
close and warm.

Then it was a Wednesday warm
to touch you and I did.
You ran in the rain like a cat.
I called but the dull thud of
my tears fell only alone.

There love stretched
taut to crumble. And the heat
of my life felt the scald and
stars were unseen..

Light hid in drains and
you were in the rain gone.
I see you wet and reach
toward me. Dreams don't

die and I wrap the night
In paper sliced so thin

you can see thru my veins
where I have travelled

And alone.


Caroline Shank