Hot Plate Sally

Our Siamese cat Sam played Chopin
in the early hours of my childhood. 

He dozed directly on the family 
room heat vent. I thought of Hot 

Plate Sally in Biology, a Texan 
waitress who could feel no pain, 

something about her nerve endings. 
I wrote my father, I forgive you.  

He wrote, I’m in God’s hands now. 
Sam loved our Hoosier jerseys, 

the hot dryer we restarted 
intermittently to get the wrinkles 

out. His body made the thumping 
sound of our no longer 

white Converse high tops 
his last go round.

HILARY SIDERIS

Hilary Sideris has published poems in The American Journal of Poetry, Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Free State Review, Mom Egg Review, Poetry Daily, Room, Salamander, and Sixth Finch, among others. Her most recent book, Animals in English, Poems after Temple Grandin, was published by Dos Madres Press in 2020.