A Letter to Louisiana

By: Gabriela Yareliz

The waters will recede and return home. You’ll be home, too.

The sunshine will peek out and warm the flaky paint skin on the old buildings. It will soak up the heavy rains like a mother cleaning up a wound. Its hot rays a bright Band-Aid.

You’ll sit on your porch again and watch the shutters glimmer in the heat; the visible heat waves shimmering like nature’s glitter. The waves distorting what is there. It only feels like it’s melting, but it’s not. Only you are. You know this.

You’ll sit and talk into the night; whispers on the porches in the glow of a dim gold light under the night’s carpet of stars. The tap-tap of the bugs against the light bulb a rhythm keeping time.

You’ll get that feeling when the drops of sweat running frantic under your clothes stop stiff as you walk into blasting air conditioning.

You’ll hear the insects’ chorus in the night as you lay your head peacefully on a fluffy pillow.

You’ll hear the rains on the fronds, and you won’t fear– your feet on dry land. Your pelican in the sky.