a
loud cry
from the
Depressed
heart..

don’t say sorry, I want to tell her

do what you like, I would say to her

you’re perfect, I'd confess to her

take all the time you want and never feel bad about it, never apologize for the way you exist, especially the way you do it, which is so breathtaking I feel I might fall through the floor because I am standing on clouds

is what I wish I could say to her

watching you adore the world is stunning enough for me to spend my whole life doing it
I could gaze at you gazing forever and never be satisfied that I had seen enough
don't regret all the seconds you spent simply looking, listening, and breathing in all the beauty you could find
I do the same, and it is the reason I look at you so often

The goddess of the spent moon skulks to her feathery bed of fiery dawn.
Wrens through the uplands wend the fence weft with piecemeal straw.
Lips painted like pomegranate groves, dashed with fructifying sweets.
A kiss is a far-off and warm opening of lips like the sun into forest gleams.

Your shade, ma, follows me like a
loaded red wagon .  You are heavy
with the fruit of your youth.
What were you like as a young
girl fresh in the breeze of
morning?

Did you love your mother?  I heard
her singing in her French
voice.  She folded into life in
Milwaukee, spread into death.
She covered you like a
cowl.

You don't cover me.  You are not
allowed. I never cry for you
and that is your naked
sorrow.

I saw you once crying for your
mother.   Are you together now?

Shades rolled over on
the window of my
days and nights.  

Go away  Ma.  
Run for cover from my
poem's imagination.

Caroline Shank

Speak
       Life
            Into
               Yourself
      You’re
                More
                     Delicate
                             Than
                                     You
                                        Think