Homonym

Ellen Dudis Click to read more...

Ellen Dudis’ poems have appeared in many journals, literary magazines, newspapers and anthologies, most recently Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease, Missouri Review and Burning Bright: Passager Celebrates 21 Years.

There is
at the translucent bottom of the cup
another swallow,
red-throated, spread-winged, in a fork-tailed swoop
of blue the brushwork
can’t hang on to any more than you escape
it—one last swallow’s
parting gift, the play on flight as keep-
sake.  Your thirst becomes
that flash of hindsight through a telescope,
an objet d’art.
The woman rushing down the thousand steps
into the man’s arms,
the birds’ electric burst from plum trees ripe
with fall, the stillness
then, and downstream where the willow’s teardrops
float away, the bridge
behind them—it must have been on the tip
of their tongues, this kiss
of coincidence.  The swallows’ overlap
is there.

Discussion