Peter

My older brother’s rock in Greek. He doesn’t speak to our mother who drinks. A passenger 
in his Grand Prix, I was fifteen when he turned down Redemption Song. This music doesn’t 
make sense here, he said, meaning, maybe, the stubble fields, the homicidal Indiana winter 
wind? I didn’t ask. I watch Youtube, jot down each step in black ballpoint, create a strong
password, connect my old Dell to Wi-Fi so we can Zoom. Last time, how long did I go on 
after the Internet cut out and I remembered the fridge, that last slice of red velvet cake? 

Wildwood

There is no village in The Villages, a well-paved world with lanes for racing-striped golf carts, chrome wheels, home team colors. My brother Pete in Plymouth, Indiana and Sergeant Lee, Wildwood PD, ponder by phone the cherry red Camaro in her drive, its V8 engine with more horsepower & torque than she needs now. A vehicle cops call an Asshole Car. She walked away while I was talking to her but it’s not my place to diagnose. Florida heat, a lowball quote from a redhead at Trinity Relocation is all it took: Mom auto-signed. Italians dumped her furniture, she said, Empire sofa with fractured legs, Waterford goblet in shards, then floored it, peeled rubber. In a Camaro cloud two old gearheads compare Chevies they’ve loved—Corvettes, Corvairs—names that mean nothing since there’s nothing they can say.  

HILARY SIDERIS

Hilary Sideris’s poems have appeared recently in Anti-Heroin Chic, OneArt, Poetry Daily, and Right Hand Pointing. She 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.)