What will you share with me?
You who have been gone so long?  Will you speak of
everyday things?  "Caroline, the
weather has been so cold."

Will you touch me on the hand
that once curled around you?
"Caroline you always had
such soft skin."

Will you sing your songs to
me again? The notes of which
lay down their sound on my
lonely face like kisses.
"Caroline do you remember
how we danced that night
to the music playing on
the revolving colors of
the jukebox?"

Will you bring me
your Roses of Sharon for
all the years of desolation?

Will you kneel into my lonely
night of years of nights?
Will you share my tears,
all my fears, across the
darkening skies?

Will you take the evanescent
light and write joy in
my blue eyes?  
"Caroline do you still light up
at the sound of me
moaning your name?"

I will share your smile with
smiles of my own.
What will you ever share with
me in the flowered landscape
of imagination?

Will you share your thoughts
like petals thrumming on the
wind of your return?  
Or will I awaken
to the unslept on pillow faintly
smelling smoothly of
marijuana, in the raw
morning of remembering?

("Caroline!" the unheard of
to no one there.)

Caroline Shank