Photography © Jennifer Matthews

 

Narcissus

We order cheap green curry at a crooked sidewalk table, pay a dollar more for extra vegetables, a euphemism for cabbage. We love cabbage. We tip in cash. She talks about betrayal. Her favorite child, my brother Dave, won’t take her calls. Who would she be if not betrayed? Across a bed of daffodils, a snake tattoo around his neck, a man tells us the flower’s true name, a little drunk. He stoops to flattery. Back in the day, I bet you were that beautiful. She beams. I’m that beautiful now.
 

Hilary Sideris’s poems have appeared recently in The American Journal of Poetry, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, OneArt, Poetry Daily, Right Hand Pointing, Salamander, Sixth Finch, and Verse Daily. She is the author of Un Amore Veloce (Kelsay Books 2019), The Silent B (Dos Madres Press 2019), and Animals in English, poems after Temple Grandin (Dos Madres Press 2020). Her book of pandemic poems, Liberty Laundry, is forthcoming from Dos Madres. She lives in Brooklyn and works as a professional developer for the CUNY Start Program at The City University of New York.

Poet/Photographer Jennifer Matthews’ poetry has been published in Nepal by Pen Himalaya and locally by the Wilderness Retreat Writers Organization, Midway Journal, The Somerville Times, Ibbetson Street Press and Boston Girl Guide. Jennifer was nominated for a poetry award by the Cambridge Arts Council for her book of Poetry Fairy Tales and Misdemeanors. Her songs have been released nationally and internationally and her photography has been used as covers for a number of Ibbetson Street Press poetry books and has been exhibited at The Middle East Restaurant, 1369 Coffeehouses, Sound Bites Restaurant in Somerville and McLean Hospital.