POEM: “My Underwear Is In My Room” — I’m in no rush / I’ve no need to push
My Underwear Is In My Room
By Goddess am I lost
in this getting found.
Immigrants come to Montreal
and find their others
in groups and dinners
and ethnic food grocers.
But there’s no store for Ottawans!
Or shops for displaced Albertans.
From my balcony I do see the mountains!
Rockies memories or skiing Camp Fortune?
Where are my lovers?
Even in London, by Goddess, there were some!
Mark somewhere, and my 5th Grade admirer.
The Muse and his textures
and an old mate I met at the mall.
In Montreal I just had one.
But I wished I had never met him at all.
So ugly the whole thing, looking back now.
False, waste of time, cheap, vacant & out to lunch.
(And the most beautiful sweat-skin smell
and the best of the deepest tongues
the thickest of the most manly hands
and the saddest soul of them all.
The most competent, yet the hugest lost potential
ashamed and sad in drinks and drugs
and wayward mates who tell him to buy another round
and so disrespectful to his casual woman.)
But a lesson?
I am made only for Big, big love.
Or casual lays with men not of this era.
The ones we met in our late 20s, 30s at Zaphod’s
before the commodification of Tinder bods.
Yes I judge. Thank you, my loves have been
top shelf, top notch.
These transient online bullshit dating transactions
breaks the spirit, rots my guts.
No thank you, I don’t need material for another book.
But what sucks—
Was I never happy in my relations?
Laughed most with the French Canadian and an Egyptian.
Such terrors and traumas with other gentlemen!
(Drinks, drunks will do that to ya!)
But that first love – a standard.
The ultimate human – a measure.
Parents: raise your girls to feel secure
If they feel no worth, they’ll reject a man of worth.
By Goddess am I lost
in this getting found.
Immigrants come to Montreal
and find their others
in groups and dinners
and ethnic food grocers.
But hold on! This I know.
My angels are around me somehow.
I meet them in texts and on balconies now
instead in every shop, and Wakefield pubs.
I am homesick after his last meaningless touch.
It was so transient, so empty, so put on.
And Jesse warned me it’s like this in Montreal:
Easy come, easy go, joie de vivre, let’s have fun.
Ontarians are not Quebeckers
And I’m still Albertan, recently connected
with my Russian-lineage cousins
And the happiness that comes!
To what do we hook our Self?
Because I am not a Montreal seductress!
I am so Provincial next to this!
But in Ottawa, I sure did swing my dick.
There are growing pains in Montreal.
I need you to tell me it’s good for my soul.
Alone, desolate, dead in Ottawa
I said when I sat here scared to tell myself:
“If you’re afraid in Montreal
it’s because you’re there.
And if you’re there in Montreal
it’s because you dared.”
You wouldn’t believe the green canopy of trees I see!
They’re spread out everywhere here across my balcony in my new City!
And the sun is setting on the summery scene
and my underwear is in my room, in drawers: my cutlery.
And I will go in my bedroom in delicate feet
And I will remember that I have since changed the sheets
And like the song says, ‘now change me,’
I will keep making my home in spite of the mystery.
Because what does this all mean?
I’m in no rush
I’ve no need to push
My underwear is in my room
In Montreal, and for now – that is enough.
Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 10, 2019
