the wheather was cold until your eyes
I do not understand
One bird was frozen
I think my heart

I cannot get to you.  You
are like Jerusalem, a
misguided city. Your name is exposed
to the sun while i call to you in the
silence of the volcanic pre-dawn.
You have slides of affectation.
A pilgrim might mistake
you for the safety of a handhold
hammered in the sand.

Other
travelers knew the peril of
your affection.

You don't  reply. So cold the
monument, so silent
the wall of your response.

This is all I know
and so do you that the
messages of the world fall
like the snow on the ground
white with shadows. Mute
replicas of shared emotion.

Drink to us the sour
vinegar of the sponge.

Caroline Shank
June 16, 2022

If only a few poems could make you fall in love,
I would make them for you
all the feelings I put together;
just to tell you.
If only words were easier for us
to understand the feelings we experience,
If only love made everything less complicated,
And I don't have to reveal it.