Days into December,
and my brother and I play
hide and seek
in the brush-heavy
woods behind our house:
arms mapped
with thorns as I peer through
nook and cranny, try to find
a spot to hide.
Two weeks before,
my father leaves
and never comes home.
After my parents fight,
my brother and I start crying, to which my father sighs,
I love you, guys, but it was so much
easier when you weren’t around,
as he slides on his raincoat
and retires out the door.
Now, I try my best to disappear:
press my belly against the trunk,
let the creepy bugs
clamber upon my limbs.
But on that gelid December day,
I’m found five times, and five times
my father doesn’t come home.
All December, I’m found;
all December, I hide harder,—
climb taller trees, wade deeper in the cool
puddles near the base of firs—
but always, my brother finds me.
Even now, as an adult,
I’m trying to hide,
always searching for
the perfect parabola of root
or pile of fatwood tinder
to hide my body behind—
always watching as the moon fattens
overhead and illuminates
the clearing in front of me.
