Dear Dawn,

Maya Walter

Before the heat sets in, say cool moon morning delicately.

I’ve saved a slow dance with runner up blankets waiting for you

Woodpeckers knock knock knock down front doors And I don't bother to rebuild them,
They push at the whole of the body, leaning and swaying in your morning breeze and I can't do

much but gaze up to the beginning blue sky that I’ll say I miss you in the afternoon to.
Look, there's a star hiding in the west, a glow’s soft sigh stuck on the street, beaming lamppost

performers bowing out of vision, and the birds take their places.

On the crow’s feather gleams a reflection of you and it circles back over haystacks of its own

divide to greet you in a chariot race. Hatchlings in a mango tree,
They were looking for you too
Like them,
You change with the seasons, shivering one month, sun kissing another.
Always greeting new friends I’d love ‘til dusk, see,
You are holy the way fresh fruit spills over greedy hands but stays gracious and giving. The way

the color orange is so special to me, You give that too in the east
You give an early fall ache the sorrow of too soon in my throat
But you are worth that of being awake.

Maya Walter is a junior at Eastern Illinois University. She is working on a degree in Art History with double minors in Studio Art and Anthropology. She is from Calumet City, IL.