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by Susana Gonzales

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Hide and Seek
and the multitude of stars
are hovering angels
watching over my play,

and the only light
glows from the porch,
which is home base,
and I am not it.

Lying flat, the grass
conceals,
and only the conspiratorial stars
can see where I hide.

I wait for what seems
a childhood
when Olly-olly-oxen-free!
calls me safely home.

All stars behave the same
watching over children
who play in every summer
corner of the earth.

From the east to Midwest,
from coast to coast,
from quiet suburbs
to my military home base

where I obeyed
the rules and grew up
as constant
as the stars

and the stripes,
toward which I turned
each sundown as retreat
sounded Taps, and I held
my hand over my heart.

Where my father’s call
to country forced
a nomadic childhood
and a never-ending hunger
in me for home.

Where home became an adage
like home is where your heart is,
but I remain aimless,
and apart in the dark.

So still I lie in darkness
staring up at summer’s stars
waiting for a porch light
to call me safely home.

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Susana Gonzales is an emerging poet who focuses on how the political is linked tightly to her personal experiences as a Mexican-American lesbian feminist. She was raised in the Air Force, traveled much, and has grown to see the world through multiple lenses. She has been published in The Poetica Review, Drunk Monkeys, and The Santa Fe Literary Review.

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