By Julia DaSilva

shaped like the rain. I write to you from a world with a closer sun.
They say the gift to give a child is a dawn that returns for other reasons than orbit.
You will have dreams like hammers. Their endings will nail you into what has begun.

I don't know about gifts. I wish you cherries you can plant when you are done.
This drought will dream impossible choices and you will need a core like a seed.
You are shaped like the rain. I write to you from a world with a closer sun,

a dream that is brown grass. A coffin, mine, yours. A lawn like an oven, and you the one
who could climb inside to save a book of prayers you would never speak.
You will have such dreams, hammers. Their endings will nail you into what has begun.

You will wake and think them apocalypse-sighted. You will outrun
them as long as the world for you is heat and motion and resistance. But there will be a gift.
You are shaped like the rain. I write to you from a world with a closer sun,

yes here the sun is so near it loosens the eyes, and finally the heart. A choice, and none.
I can't tell you what it will look like but at the last second you will take it under your arm.
You will have dreams like hammers. Their endings will nail you into what has begun,

to this balcony spilling back doors and last words. You glow around my neck like spun
grass, caught fire, planted new. You will gather until the sun is again something to rise to.
You are shaped like the rain. I write to you from a world with a closer sun,
from a dream like a hammer. Its ending releases us into what has begun.

~~~

Julia DaSilva is a graduate student in the English department at the University of British Columbia, where she pursues research in magic systems & religion in fantasy literature, seeking a radical politics of magic. Her poetry has appeared in Cathexis, The Lamp, Pivot, High Shelf Press, Reckoning, and MORIA. Find more of her work at juliadasilva.squarespace.com.