Boss

Could I labor better,
repress my yes hiss

in the power of a higher
wage, a multitasking

tongue, a sticky kiss
in the Employees Only

pantry over free cookies?
Can you breathe life

into me, mortal to whom
I submit my report,

by whom I’m blessed
when I sneeze.

Hilary Sideris holds an MFA from The Writers’ Workshop at The University of Iowa. Her poems have appeared in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Cortland Review, Mid-American Review, The Southern Poetry Review and Swink, among other publications. She is the author of the chapbooks The Orange Juice is Over, Gold & Other Fish, Sweet Flag, Baby and A House Not Made with Hands. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn.