A Letter (from Colima, Mexico)

Dear, there are evenings when the warm rains

Relax into a coat of lighter air, or into wind,

Pausing to lift from the wide waters of a pool

That coolness it has not yet cause to shed.

There are evenings when, if ever, an idea blends

Into the rains, as women into the length

Of a long gown, for the filling of its form.

There are evenings when I am but a place set

Composedly and calmly against the idea’s weight.

Born in April, 1986, Julian Smith-Newman is currently a student of Renaissance literature and art at the Warburg Institute, London.