Ella's poem is about emptiness, and the word "blank" shows up again and again to carry it. A woman sits quietly in a crowd, looking at whatever is in front of her and listening to whatever she can hear, yet none of it fills the space inside her. She senses that something new, something she has never experienced, could fit into that gap. She even comes close to seeing it. Then the blankness returns.
The speaker's feeling is a mix of longing and resignation. "She knew it. she knew it" sounds like someone admitting a truth she can't escape, and the sigh in "oh, blank" makes the moment feel tired and a little sad. The short, flat lines and the full stops give the poem a hushed, stalled rhythm, as if the thought keeps running out of room. By the end, "blank" is no longer something she feels but something she is, and the poem leaves us with a quiet, lonely mood, made sharper by the fact that she is surrounded by people.