by Hilary Sideris

Carina, he’d say, as I left for work
in thrifted sweaters & pencil skirts.

He proclaimed it from our bed
where he lay like a pasha, plump,

unemployed. Carina—not lovely
or beautiful—just cute—was good

enough for me. I loved his language.
He didn’t love mine. Didn’t read

English, not even The Times.
He stuck to La Repubblica.

Once, we held hands at the Met,
gazed at a woman with outsized

breasts in neolithic bronze—
squatting—the label read.

I went so far as to demonstrate
when he asked what squat meant.

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Hilary Sideris is the author of the poetry collections Calliope (Broadstone Books, 2024), Liberty Laundry (Dos Madres Press, 2022), Animals in English (Dos Madres Press, 2020), The Silent B (Dos Madres Press, 2019), Un Amore Veloce (Kelsay Books, 2019), and The Inclination to Make Waves (Big Wonderful LLC, 2016).

by Hilary Sideris

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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Every day
my love burns
down the house

almost, la moka
on the stove, then
off for a walk

or soccer match.
If I accuse him,
he admits I’m right:

why fight about
a fire not burning
anymore or yet.

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Hilary Sideris is the author of Un Amore Veloce (Kelsay Books 2019), The Silent B (Dos Madres Press 2019), Animals in English (Dos Madres Press 2020), and Liberty Laundry (Dos Madres Press 2022.) She works as a professional developer for the CUNY Start program at The City University of New York and lives in Brooklyn.

by Hilary Sideris

To drain our
mother’s hematoma,

they drill into her
head. Not blood,

she says, a pinkish
liquid—lymph, pus?—

pools in the space
between her brain

& skull. Our father’s
dead, a good rid-

dance. Her depth
perception’s off.

She falls & falls.  
We call it grief.

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Hilary Sideris grew up in Indiana. She lives in Brooklyn and works for The City University of New York. Her poems have recently been published in Gravel, Main Street Rag, The Lake, and Salamander. Her collection Un Amore Veloce is just out from Kelsay Books. “Hole” will appear in The Silent b, forthcoming from Dos Madres Press.