Treatment
If not for that need
I took for love & then
that shove, I wouldn’t have
married & divorced &
owed five years
of maintenance to my ex-
spouse whose accent
I found sexy till I didn’t.
I wouldn’t have been awake
at 3 AM to see that bug
traverse our coverlet
& watch the blood—mine?
his?—gush as I crushed it
between finger & thumb.
The toxic squad
wouldn’t have come &
sprayed our bed, treatment
for which I also paid.
*
Testosterone
Ground down like a soft
graphite stub in a hand-turned
sharpener, at night I count
backwards to the beginning
of divorce till boredom
overcomes remorse. How many
have been fired since cancer
research stalled? Fools in charge
confuse transgenic mice with
transgender men. My lawyer
Venmos a reminder to replenish
his retainer. U-Haul boxes
accrue dust, pile up like debts
beside my bed. Should I have
tried testosterone, purchased
a magnifying mirror, plucked
my upper lip & wanted sex
with my husband?
*
Shove
My cute nephew, a studious child,
has joined a frat, lifts weights,
drinks protein shakes. Last week
he shoved his mother when she
got up in his face—my little sister
isn’t asking for advice. I offer none.
Now’s not the time to say the man
I married hit his mom. What’s
worse, a husband or son’s shove?
She hopes he finds a girlfriend soon.
*
Boomer Beach
I’ve only met you once,
for Thai, but you live on a beach
& I watch waves to meditate,
so I lie to my therapist,
drive to your gated community.
The surf, gnarly before an early
Nor’easter, churns up the Jersey
shore, its seawall higher, reinforced
since Hurricane Sandy. I take a picture—
not of us—of the wild rose hips,
their easy sway that says we’re all
fair game, but we’re still here.
After two glasses of Sancerre,
you talk at length about containing
hydrogen—not arrogance, I think,
just a man lost in his work.
You say you levitated in your youth,
show me a star-shaped scar
in your left palm, stitches between
finger & thumb, tell me about
the house in the California hills
you didn’t want to sell,
but the wildfires
burned closer every year.
*
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), The Inclination to Make Waves (Big Wonderful LLC, 2016) and Most Likely to Die (Poets Wear Prada, 2014). Originally from Indiana and a longtime Brooklyn resident, she is a co-founder and curriculum developer for CUNY Start, a college preparatory program within the City University of New York.
