Hilary Sideris

Red River, April 2020

At JBS mothers
& daughters chop

shoulder to shoulder,
sweat, sneeze, scream

over machines in Ixilean,
Tagalog, Mai Mai about

Wuhan’s flattening curve,
New York’s sharp spike,

the budding trees like
lungs turned upside

down in a flat land
prone to flooding.


Many years ago, as a child with 20/20 vision in Indiana, Hilary Sideris shot her neighbor with a BB gun.