Sylvie Hill

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 wildness dormant.
So what did he see as maternal in this Poetess?

And why the Jeep?!

Whether whatfore he said then to me, bothered:
“You with kids? Ha ha, I don’t think so sister.”
Yet he was the narcissistic, dark alcoholic
and I too entrenched in his war to get out of it.

Henceforth we get locked in targets
Set ahead for us by past upsets
Family patterns, neuroses, and abuses
This is the outcome of divorced kids’ futures.

And why the Jeep?

Love is that one thing that breaks us from regime
That sets us off in silly-land, challenging all that seems
And it’s addictive in its hallucinatory properties
And when gone, leaves us with blunt realities.

We need only one person to say: In you, I believe.
We need only parent to say: go away, you bug me.
I needed only one young man to tell me I could mother.
And only one fucked-up experience to discover –

That maybe he wasn’t as much of a creep,
that maybe he was the one who had my Jeep.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, October 2, 2019.

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