Hide and Seek

This is a piece I wrote for my independent study--I had to pick a news article and then turn it into a poem. I picked one article that had to deal with a little boy going missing in the Missouri River. It's a little morbid compared to what I usually write.

Hide and Seek

1, 2, 3. Ready or not, here she comes.

Her name is Missouri.

Sometimes she seeks people along

her shores, or on wooden docks made

for searching along her waters.

Sometimes she even lets them swim.

The people she picks up along her journeys

plead and grasp for land, like she’s not playing fair—

but she reminds them that this is a game

for the others, okay?

They’ll find you eventually, she’s sure.

Sometimes, on sunny days, she hordes her “treasures.”

She finds broken toys and

sinking

fishing

poles,

or even pieces from the news, when she thinks

the world is willingly playing hide and seek along with her.

“Search goes on for 6-year-old.”

She’s selfish this way, wanting to hold onto

something that is not her own. Her waters are

too busy hugging what belongs on land to notice

that her treasures are missing puzzle pieces

            for people who miss

filling Easter egg baskets and eating mashed potatoes

            with their families.

Sometimes, when Missouri is hiding with

one of the children she’s pulled from shore,

she listens with anticipation—but instead, only hears

tears that don’t taste much like her own water.

And even though each time she finds a new player they

cry and shiver and splash against the surface,

she only answers

to those who call out to her, in search

of the people she’s taunting—

sometimes we find them, we find them

underneath sunken fishing poles and broken toys.

And when she sees the seeker of her

            tormented game, heart

twisted—

she wonders if she should have played at all.