And sometimes I am sorry
that I do not know when I last waltzed
through the book fair to buy a Smencil, 
how I negotiated the final 
Silly Bandz trade, concluded recess
Irish step-dancing lessons from Bridget,
nor did I consider a world
in which these toy chest treasures
were cast back to sea.

Somehow, unknowing,
I released them.

Somehow, I can still recall
the cotton candy scent, how the trough
of my desk perfectly stored the plastic tube
from which it was born—the pencil
we encased between assignments to savor
its aroma. And the oblong giraffe, 
how it stretched until it grew 
unrecognizable, braceleting my wrist,
and then there is the footwork of a light jig.

I do not know what will come
after you. Now, as the embers
of our love grow dim, I watch you clench
the fire poker, rummaging through
the pulsing glow, eager to fan a flame.

While you are hunched in the recliner,
flannelled back too proud to admit
it is nothing but ash, I have sifted through
the best of us and packed them neatly
in my duffle: your contemplative silence
after Hadestown, how you held me
as my grandmother took her last breath
in a hospital bed a town over, the mornings
you would not leave before tucking me in,
and then there is all that will remain within,
without any concerted effort to remember.

I do not linger too long in the door frame.
I do not turn back to see if you’ve looked up
from the fireplace. I walk away willfully, hands
vacant, no longer clawing into all I love.
How much more I can carry with me this way.

---

BLAKE HARRSCH received the Graduate Creative Writing Award at the 2025 NJCEA Conference for her Creative Writing panel submission, which included the poem, “Know How It Ends, Sing It Anyway.” Cash prize generously sponsored by the New Jersey College English Association.

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Harrsch, Blake. “Know How It Ends, Sing It Anyway,” Watchung Review. New Jersey College Education Association. Coming 2026.