a game of hide-and-seek

Stunned by the blindfold he is lost
in this front yard suddenly fragrant,

fraught with dark, the bark-hiding moth
deep in alfalfa roiled with gnats,

the hesitations that coil in bats,
his body hedges and prepares for harm

behind the focus of his less familiar eyes,
behind the faithless, fearful and soft cloth,

feckless, haptic, dazzled and still;
he works his way through grass filled

blindly by others’ passing and their pause
and the giggles as he falls

to stupor, to gesture, to the awful rules.
He flees a sweat-bee flanking his ear,

and sightlessly searches for all of his choices
until it’s clear; he fumbles the way of their voices.