I could know any of them
in a dark room, eyes
blindfolded, hands
tied. How, you ask?

One of them smells
like fresh laundry, warm, like hugs, a tinge
of unshed tears, a safe place
to sleep. She smells like home more
than anywhere I've been, when I can catch
her smell. I have breathed this
in for so long, sometimes
it eludes me, the way I
cannot scent myself, for
an abundance of familiarity.

It feel traitorous to try
and describe how
a second smells, that
when she will never
understand, but she
smells like spontaneous gifts
of friendship, and
long sunlit days, she smells
so much of herself
I could never imagine
her differently.

Yet another scents the air
in such a way I
feel my lungs are
bloomings, and yet are somehow
contricting, like I cannot draw
enough of this air,
to breathe so deeply as
I need. He smells
of an accomplishment
hard-won, but worth
every step of the way, though
there is a hidden
bite, a concealed
sharpness, an almost imperceptible tang.

I cannot begin to think
how to explain the intriguing way
another smells, as I cannot quite
place my finger
on it. Much like
its owner, her aroma
is a woven tapestry, and so
we see the complete
product, but never
the individual
threads, a perfect
work of art.

And lastly, the one
who often seems
to have no smell
at all. Spend
some time around him, however,
teach your lungs how
to sense his
presence, and you will notice
he does not smell flashy
or bright, his smell
is constructed
of strong undertones, complimenting
and supporting
everyone else, comforting like
some people's idea
of god.

Sometimes I think
if I could have my own
particular brand of perfume
all the time, I
would be invincible.

Having skipped through fresh bloomings of
Lesser Celandine, feet numb to their shiny hearts;

one-foot-spanned the wild River Beal,
the other missed, trailed, became sodden.

Green eyes scanned, surveyed the horizon, with its path
to Gallows hill, so with one foot cold he ascended;

Tarmac pounded his heart, as words,
from god-knows-where, flushed synapses.

Perhaps it was the discord of former chains
ratting in the bleakness, crimes of dependencies

crying for release that swept his attention on the wind,
or a lapse into timeless genetics, coursing naturally.

He died up there, left a ghost on a former gibbet,
then descended to the Beal's banks of Yellow Flag Iris.

June 2014

this mixed-media paper
curls every time I impose
my watercolors upon them.

I might be using too much water.
I'm definitely using too much water.

I don't care though.

I love the way the paint blooms
from the tip of the brush when it touches the water;
blood dripping into cheap pinot grigio.

as cheap as the word "I",
or family,
or atypical,
or grief.

I wonder what it would be like to
crawl into that hole that you keep
calling the sun?
only pigment blooms around here.

that was dramatic,
I know.

You placed a flower in my
hand. We looked at each
other in the haze.
I gave you a long poem written
with the heat of our breaths
last bloomings.

It was in the days of our beach
that we walked through to
the last door. Time
burned where the ink
of my song, snug in the
bend, sang its last
goodbye.

"Time was, red was the color
of afternoons pressed
against us. " I wrote that to you,  
a tribute to love and to laughs,
and to syllables.

I am 75 now and read with
the cat on my lap.  She
knows the art of songs
sung in the wind,
with every sigh of her lovely
brindle colored breast.

Tomorrow she will bring
me no nearer to you
who sang, once, to me
in the

russet sand.


Caroline Shank
1.29.2022