A Four Year Old Missing Girl Has Been Fo

30 Day Poetry Challenge: National Poetry Month

A Four Year Old Missing Girl Has Been Found

Sleeping in the closet, perfect hideaway from monsters

with warts or hairy arms and deep voices.

The closet is deep enough so that I can’t hear

when you call for me.

You were away for a bit, walked next door

to the neighbor’s blooming forsythia to pass a bit of tea.

You left me sleeping, tucked beneath Hello Kitty. I hold

an elephant Inchimal, dream two plus two might

mean elephant babies. But the monster came,

frightened me from underneath warm cabbage leaves

and furry blankets. Ogre breath and Wild Turkey

disturbed regular breathing. My new baby wriggled

out of the Smotherpod to tell me to kick

the monster’s sagging zipper then run. I escape

to closet depths that way, return to safe sleep

until you return from your exchange,

gossip and sugar over the vines.

Check on me. See if I’m still breathing.

When you check, I am still breathing, but you can’t

see me. I’m not in the house, you say, you scream

as the police circle like crows. Sleeper closets are magic.

They can hide anything from adults who look but don’t see.

Only dogs and fairies can find me. Only a canine

officer with special fairy dust sprinkled on his nose.

He will smell me but not reveal my location. He can smell

the leftover fumes that still lap the hem of my t-shirt, he knows

who I should be returned to, and who he should bite.