NAPO 7

 

Hide and Seek

 

It takes two to play this game,

At least. A hider and a seeker,

The missing and the found.

 

You’ve gotten good at hiding,

A rabbit kit in the burrow

of the bedsheets,

The best hiding places

dark and small enough

to fill with your body.

Make yourself small.

Be quiet. Try not to laugh

As the search begins.

 

What and who are we

Learning to hide from?

 

The light flips on.

You bite your tongue.

Childsplay. Meanwhile,

Somewhere in another city,

children practice

Making themselves small

beneath

 

their desks, rehearse the swallowing of screams

so many times, until they taste like ice cream.