Louise
We were in Manila. I was five, or maybe six.
There was a hurricane, a slate gray sky
and a howling wind
tearing at everything in its path,
breaking the world into pieces
and tossing the fragments to earth and air.
I stood at the screen door of the kitchen,
listening to everyone yell at my mother,
Louise! come inside! Come inside!
But she refused.
She lay down on a cot
in the big tent out there behind the house
and there she stayed.
The wind bore down, fierce, wild, relentless.
It ripped away the bricks
from the wall beside the tent,
but Louise would not move
from her chosen spot.
And the bricks
the wind
nothing
dared
touch her.
Cristina Luisa White is the author of Sex and Soul: A Memoir of Salvation. Her essays, poems, and stories have apeared in various publications including Orion Magazine, Voice Catcher, and Gay Flash Fiction. See excerpts of her work at www.cristinalwhite.com/work.