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.)
© 2024 Angel Leal
Angel Leal is a Latine, trans, ace writer who has several witches in the family. Their previous work appears in Strange Horizons, Heartlines Spec, The Deadlands, Small Wonders, Radon Journal, and elsewhere. They’ve been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Rhysling, Best of the Net, the Utopia Award, and are a coadmin of CALAMITOUS, a queer SFFH writing group. You can find them at angel-leal.com or floating around twitter @orbiting_angel.