By Jessica Bakar

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This poem is inspired by D.A. Powell’s poem “Calling All Gods.”

What is language outside the body but dry echo, reflecting want. 

For what is body outside voice but quiet unheld hands. 

And voice, stripped of syllables, what is sound beyond language. 

For the caesura before and after a clearing throat is language itself. 

What is white noise of laughter but a baseline, steady heartbeat. 

And heartbeat, what is more than nature’s metronome. 

For what is instrument but body, what is orchestra but polyphony. 

What is want without body but language without voice, empty curves of letters containing nothing but the sweet sound of silence. 

Then, symphonies. 

Process

This poem, which I began writing while attending the Kenyon Review Young Writers Residential Workshop, is a response to D.A. Powell’s poem “Calling All Gods.”