Hide and Seek

by Joyce Odam

He wanted me to find him. I found him in
gold weeds, in a field so wide it took all day.
He left no paths. He could have been anywhere,
widespread, asleep, or looking at the sky while he
waited for me. I looked 'til coolness came over the
searching—came low and covered the bright weeds
with its soft blue shadowings. I called, but he would not
answer, lying there like a cross. He wanted me to find him.

Joyce Odam is an editor at the Poetry Depth Quarterly. Her most recent chapbook, "The Power of the Moment," was published by Red Cedar Press in 1998, and her poems have appeared in the Bellingham Review, the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and the Wormwood Review.