photo: Andrew Haley

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a widely published, multiple Pushcart nominee. Find his work in places like Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press); An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy (Cawing Crow Press); Like As If (Pski’s Porch); Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven). Check out his video poem, “God Is Real,” in Otis Nebula issue 8, here.

Hide And Go Seek


The day the children ran off

to hide and never returned.

The summer day I counted to ten.

When I shouted

come out come out wherever you are

and only the wind answered,

only the sun was setting.

When the harder I looked

the less I saw, the less there was.

Children in closets and under beds.

Children in suitcases and down a well.

Shuddering with gleeful anticipation.

Who may be there still, undiscovered,

hidden for all their lives.

Waiting and waiting…

Never to be found. Never home free.