Singing Through the End
after Christina Gosnay
When two dead languages can meet, they sing.
They find, describe, all that’s sweet. They sing.
Let’s offer them our lungs, complete the choir.
Through wilted spine and sure defeat, we sing.
Across all continents and boulevards
let’s dig and build a new drumbeat, we sing.
The clocks tick tock but some new buds still bloom.
By want and wander we retreat, we sing.
When all our words have burned and turned to Ash
we might still find the time to greet—we sing.
About the Authors: This poem was a collaboration between two poets. Ash Kemp drafted it during the Tupelo Press Poetry Marathon, and Lauren Oertel revised it (including turning the free verse draft into a ghazal) through techniques shared in her Poetry Revision Workshop Summer Series.