Bed-bound Actress Dreams Big
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
In drama school
Another life ago
We do an exercise:
Put the chair
Where the chair
Needs to be
I circle for too long
Try once
No
Try again
Are you sure
Try again
Andrea takes me in
Over her glasses
& scarf
Hannah
Where does the chair
Actually need to be?
She scares me
In that rare way
I am grateful for
There are few people
For whom I will follow
My own demands
I climb out the window
I hate being stuck
Indoors
It is awkward
Getting the chair
Through the window
But it is right
And right now
Another life away
My chair is
Stuck indoors,
Andrea
How do I
Put the chair
Where the chair
Needs to be?
What use
Are these beautiful
Animal instincts
If I cannot
Follow them?
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Neuroplasticity & Rainstorms
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
In rehab, they reassure me
That my body can’t tell the difference
Between imagined movement & real
But what about between
The sky beneath my eyelids & standing
Drenched in a storm’s purple static
Like that night in Kibale?
It was impossible not to hear God
In the thunder, five forks
Splitting the sky in whole,
Dark velvet jungle with its mouth wide
& us at its incisor edge
Or that camp in Amboseli,
Slow dancing fire pit crackling out
Into dizzy starlight
Earth falling away, insignificant
Amongst the galaxy’s red giants
Even our young laughter petering
Into awe
Silence was more common those days
Than I would have thought
The world already loud enough
& real enough
& now could it be true
That if I just shut my eyes tight enough
I might find cool dust under my palms
My back on that hard-spun Earth
& a midnight sky deep & possible?
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What the Sunlight Can Be
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
I stand shaky in a square of light
Thrown from the window onto the carpet
And a band strikes up, violins swell,
Clara breaks into song:
The light, the light in the piazza
On stage, in Italy,
Soaring out this window by my bed
All I see are miracles
Shakier steps into the hallway
My cat weaves around my legs
And howls through a chorus
We sing to the sunlight
To Broadway lights beaming
From the mirror in the bathroom
To not caring whether my training
Was for an audience ovation or simply
To mark standing upright on my own two feet
To hearing my voice arrive
In a stilted whisper rather than a belt
And still thinking:
There are so many things about joy
That I had not noticed until now
“What the Sunlight Can Be” was previously published in Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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About the Author
Hannah Siden is a poet, writer, and filmmaker living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). You’re welcome to find her on Twitter @hannah_siden or at her website.