Sylvie Hill

“You From Australia?” And by god, you wouldn’t shut up! You complained about the young workmen their entitled millennial attitude wound up, you weren’t wrong. And between my spilled drink and our meals and pints of Guinness you spoke frustrated about buying a house working too hard, then working late on fixing it. Balls deep, […]

Shotgun We come at the same time. These men speaking of simultaneous orgasms. But don’t you know great sex starts outside the bedroom. Foreplay started at coat check, he said. And mom said it was all about if he opened the car door. Can we get the boat out into the water properly with the […]

When You Crash The Company Truck If he could only see what I saw when he swung open the door Tall, proud, satchel bag from work, in command and clear-headed not stoned. You’ve so much potential! And you were so proud showing me around! But in the aftermath I saw it was not about me, […]

How Soon, Now? Oh, the honour we pay, the grave path we pave. Paved: with the regular walk of doubts of finding love again so – we stay. Sat on benches, staring at rocks, dead bodies beneath them “Come alive!” “Come alive!” We say. Go away, you say to them. For it they never met […]

JEEP. Whether whatfore he said then and none other He could picture me with a crew as a Mother Of three, packing them into the back of a Jeep Taking them to soccer, in control, routine. Wencewhy, though, had he thought me militant? I was only 20, disciplined, and innocent. But stupid when drunk, and […]

Messenger (Happiness) My dear, you don’t understand “happiness!” You expect so damn much from it! You want it to stay on, to stay put to never leave your side like a satchel that keeps banging your thigh… Do you wear this purse to bed?! In the shower, or in the garden?! Why do you insist […]

And I Will Go With Flow It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety. And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory. I thought of your beautiful white face And thin body on Queen Mary Street And your apron when you cooked us dinner As I watched Three’s Company. 1982 […]

Starlight Holies All those boys of many nights – trophies But the few who got inside – my holies. Holy art thou who made their way in. Savoured by my flavour for these bearded men. All treated entry as sacred. Except the last one, which explains my fate therein. The only one with whom there […]

Ode To My Incense (…and when?) Tonight I burn a small stick of incense lavender, from the Montreal shop of herbs. It burns in a wooden casing bought from her in Wakefield as a gift for my birthday, many years. It reminds me she wanted her man so much so that she video-oh’d him daily […]

CEMENT (BÊTE ON) Affinity. Undercurrent. Hello two words from where did you come? I never said what I felt for him was love. But affinity suggested kinship in marriage. And undercurrent reckons romantic intention. Ah, but I dreamt of you last night for the second time in my life. And just as I was then […]