Tonight's Poet Corner: Sonar

Sonar
by Belinda Roddie

The echoes in the corridor
don't come from voices or from songs.
Instead, they all belong to winds
and sighs from wordless lullabies.

The window opens to reveal
a large chorus of hungry birds
who have eaten all of the words
that have been dropped from balconies.

The birds do not come close to shore;
instead, they hover over seas
of bubbling crude and arguments
long scrambled by a hidden hand.

And so the beacons light the skies
and lead the way to Babylon,
where towers lean against each other,
their brothers' tongues twisted in knots.

So I can see you on the street,
and I can see you, heat and all,
deliberating over poems
that we can read but can't recite.