Someone Else’s Poem

As published in the fall issue of the online literary journal, Sky Island Journal

Someone Else’s Poem

by Sandra Shaw Homer

 

You are proud

to show me your poem

about a feather-touch

some long ago,

and I am pleased to see

it speaks to me

of you

and love

and what is here.

 

Some other one

inspired your art,

but I know

the feelings are for me

now.  (Who was she?

A solitary feather

on a page.)

 

Perhaps you are ashamed

(I think)

and wish the poem

had been for me.

It is.

A gift of you,

something more of you

to know, touch, smell,

hear, kiss, taste, see.

 

Besides,

had I been she

I would not have flown,

I would certainly have known

to stay, and now –

I would be more than

just a poem.