hide-and-seek

(one)
it’s really not a challenge
(two)
finding a little girl: I’ll even close my eyes
(three)
no doubt she’d race up the stairs
(four)
agonize between playroom
(five)
and bedroom and choose what’s
(six)
familiar: green-lilied comforter,
grandma’s chest, Pooh’s corner
(seven)
and she’d wait there trembling
(eight)
in a tightly contained rapture-
(nine)
a giggling lump that defies the landscape
(ten)

ten hours later and she is still unfound
nine rooms left behind in a whirlwind dash
eight hundred thousand times calling her name
seven million possibilities, grotesque and mad
six multiverses charted in entirety
five o’clock AM and still going
four steps at a time at the staircase
she’s not even three she’s not even three
two hearts ruptured, bleeding, betrayed
one father crumbling into dust

come out, come out
wherever you are