We knew it would end—
the song and its lyrics,
the story and everyone in it,
but we danced anyway,
swayed to melancholy hymns,
bumping the backs of our knees
against the pew in a dull rhythm and
timing each tomorrow by inches of rope
twisted and frayed from the dangling, dead
weight of today. We twirled to laughter
that spun us faster into our smiles—all teeth
and jutting tongues, rooms we barely knew,
as light refused to guide us through
making sense of which belonged to whom,
our feet finding the steps, unsure at the start,
dizzy, and then confident as a gamecock—
we grooved free, never believing a pulse,
racing or steady, will cease, that the singing
will grow quiet—faint as a morning drive
between memories, and the words will forgot
there are mouths to hold them, will crawl away
with the sound on their backs.