I used to write rainfall into existence.

With only symbols & blood
            I could change a tree into a wise man

a stone into a laughing child
            a flame into a companion

to warm you under the sheets.
            Back then, I had time to study stars

& chase the truth of hummingbirds.
            Now, I can hardly keep my hut clean.

The floor is littered with unfinished spells
            the bones of beasts I don’t remember.

There must be a spell for this feeling, a rhythm
            of incantations that can give me my life back.

Not youth, but the dreaminess of swamps & fireflies.
            Not the freedom to create, but the balance of living

while dreaming. “Amá, is there a secret chant,
            a trembling bird in the middle of my tongue

who always remembers the language of miracles?”

“Nunca supe,” my mother says. Her tired mouth, wrinkled
            by the seasons, seldom whispers to the wind anymore.

I leave my mother & sit by a lonely beach. The waves
            fill my hand with blue memories.

Maybe this is enough. Maybe some magic
            only lives in between a passing life.

Underneath a stolen morning
            & the unending impulse

to form a sigil
            in the sand

(Editors’ Note: “The Witch Recalls Her Craft” is read by Erika Ensign on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 60B.)

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