Hilary Sideris

Poetry

Hilary Sideris’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Green Mountains Review, Memoir, Quiddity, The Southampton Review, and Southern Poetry Review. Her new collection, A House Not Made With Hands, is forthcoming from Poets Wear Prada Press.

What

Today I called the kettle
a bottle, my daughter

by my sister’s name.
I stumbled over antic,

how it’s almost antique,
reached in my deep

purse for what do you
call it, lipstick, toothpick,

mint, not what I thought
but what I meant.

“ In Lee Chang-dong’s beautiful film, Poetry, the protagonist, who can’t remember the word for bus station, is told by a doctor that when Alzheimer’s strikes, the nouns are the first words to go. She then decides to become a poet. This poem tries to capture that moment when you walk into a room or reach into a bag, but can’t recall what for. ”

Flat

It got too smooth, too
even, but we lacked

the inclination to make
waves. Across a range

of frequencies, it stayed
the same, below true

pitch in song. It was
one story in a house.

I lived with you.
It went like that.
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