Robert Plath

HIDEOUT

as a boy i remember
in winter
on long car rides home
after visiting aunts & uncles
it’d be dark
& i’d stretch across the backseat
first secretly cracking the window
curling up in the heat
the scent of cold starry air
& burning wood from fireplaces
sneaking in around me
imagining i was running away
hiding in back of a strange
old drafty truck
heading to some faraway place
no aunts or uncles
no mother or father
no brother or sister
just an abandoned hut
on a mountain top
where there was no more screaming
or things smashing against walls
or knuckles
or people alone in rooms weeping, etc.
trees would be my friends
& i’d braille pinecones
& talk to the wind
& sit in the company of ferns
& wink back to fireflies, etc.
but then my father would scream
roll that window up
you’re letting the goddamn heat out
waking me from
my happy tinroof hideout
orphan nighttime daydreams


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "hideot"


Rob confesses nothing.

ROB PLATH has been prolific in the underground lit. scene since 1995. His most recent poetry collections are Walking Across The Shards Of My Soul, 2021 and Batter the Keyboard Like A Raptor Is Behind Your Back, 2022. A long awaited full-length collection is due out in 2025.