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Dante Rocío Dec 2020
You could desperate hear me start weeping
Ruckus started to crying to crack tangerine
holds one still upright auburn
as an immortal's loneliness fogged or condemned
stays a Sahara burnt hot tambourine
a hangover led Arabian
a broken record
some shattered the bathroom bar.


I wonder for my brother's dowry
on beds too kempt to be called beds
and doorframes and lamps set never high enough to hit again,
to stand to kneel to lock to lash to hold to my brother's body
now felt to me like the female sold fragile to the greater cities with
a vote,
he clearly left his Argentina behind no matter
how she paled, ended struck.


No longer a child or sister to pass as
to take guests in alone
to stand our married couple's cries an unmuteable radio
can't go back to playrooms for imparallel dignities' sake
that made all the noise at night worth it to deal with
I, don't want to play the rook
if no horse of yours' beside.


Now once the scarcity of your voice,
if even morbid,
is to be greeted by me alone,
Adam and Eve we have unable to see,
just for the empty halls of your decision just for me to hit,
your turned leaf hidden agenda of relief,
I recognise my faiths of the old of your endless
mornings supposedly killed by snoring and your
vividness to my thoughts a foreign concept,
to note you resurrected out of mind and out of sight
the congruence picks me out and slaps me that
our cocoon and safe designed for you
was nothing short of a coma web in your eyes
to begin with instead.

...

I look out to my brother's dowry
to hold stubborn, fainted in my nook the head of my brother's body
to sit on his old air this house keeps like a sari gem
he will never long for
again.
A correlation of steamed mirrors, Arabian calls in yearning and melodious drabbling that overlap it endlessly, a skin in an onus shed aside to a corner once you can't feign yourself into a child's play, and the sibling you've often taken for granted till they go even if they do return at times for not so long. And suddenly you're the only one to think they might have been never truly free or themselves in the place you called home for them.
Acknowledgement, recognition, apology and broken renewal.
Dedication to the protagonist of this poem.
...
dichotomous Aug 2020
the end is nigh in a grocery store parking lot
full of lost trolleys turned batting cages,
barren shelves seemingly feeding the hysteria
there's another clean up on aisle 3
a gallon of 2% milk coats the floor in white
then turns a sickly shade of strawberry
when a woman unknowingly cleans it with her bleeding hands
No one is left to check us out
so we'll wait until the stains are gone
it's only a minute but that's all it needs
so we eye each other behind masks
and clutch our bread flower
not able to distinguish a glare from a smile
because all our squinted eyes look the same
Especially in 5 o clock lights
when we come home from offices
that double as playrooms and bedrooms
infirmaries and wards
but we're all itching to crawl back into our cages
and to be fed when the zookeeper makes his rounds
in morning updates and nightly news
we pay and run
jump in our cars, still full of gas
wipe off our milk
and sing happy birthday to the trickle of the faucet
written 5 months ago, oh how the times haven't changed
Caroline Shank Feb 2020
Now travels with me like skin.
It's always there.  I can't feel
yesterday.  But I remember.

I remember lp records and
playrooms for the kids.  Me.
I remember Mrs Cleaver
and Donna Reed.
Father knew best.

Make out parties.  Devil
or Angel.  Slow dancing.
Egg creams and cigarettes
at thirteen were a quarter
a pack.

Football. First in ten do it
again.  Cheers and jeers.

The lake behind the school
where we met to go to
the drag races.

Dancing at First **** on
Saturday nights.  The Dog,
The Bird, of course the
Twist.  

Bobby socks,poodle skirts
and crinoline,
boys in in pink and gray.  
Fads.

Getting my driver's license.
Big Boy and Bonnie Doon's
Driving the packed streets
in and out through the
circuit.  All kids all night.

Sleepovers and 35 cent
movies.

But I digress.  Now is
creaks and coughs.  Today
is viewed through rheumy
eyes.  

Now is like walking through
air dragging memory and
tomorrow's shopping lists.

That really is All There Is,
My Friend, said Mae
West I think.  If I can
remember.

Caroline Shank

— The End —