Setting up a Tennis Net with my mother at Twilight, June 7th 2020
Amelia Roselli
Amelia Roselli
This is a peaceful action
Citronella slow burn,
The kind that makes you forget fire is a small explosion.
The sun throws tones and hues
across the sky
And she throws the net across the frame
“I’m out of shape” she sighs,
Looking down at her stomach
And how menopause has changed it.
“I need it”
And yet chaos
The wind rattles the pine needles in bone curling cacophony
And the citronella is a conflagration
And the net won’t fit
And it’s hot and I’m tired
And all of the time folds like batter
into a Firestorm
I am 11 again, on the swing set that now decays somewhere
different
after dinner
and the old trees haven't been cut down yet.
I swing, my sister swings, my sister swings,
Fighting to brush the scrawny treetops with blackened, cracked sole,
Just one toe to just one leaf
And suddenly its the creation of adam:
The swing set is a bed of cherubs, carrying me up, or rather down.
Some holy divinity can only be found
in chloroplasts,
And I’ll be damned if I let my sister to it first.
The sun is just about to set, at its most ferocious
Screaming in orange and purple that it WILL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THIS GOOD NIGHT,
It crowds,
Orange in on the trees, orange in on the corneas
Till I’m happily blinded by the light
My Mother and I
Have the same eyes,
Like a matching set of dresses or headbands or suitcases,
Crystal blue and sensitive to the sun
(We wear sunglasses on rainy days).
I gaze into them as she stretches cross-hatched thread over the metal frame,
wonder if this is how she sees me,
As I see her,
Or if she sees me as I see myself
and
I fall
Into her eyes and their (they’re a) mirror to mine
And I’m across the lake, in a different backyard
A fluffy dog, my password for everything, takes no notice
Do I belong?
I have brothers here, only brothers,
bringing out burgers to eat on the patio,
Talking about marching band and mail-in college applications.
I reach out, grasp for reality, until its just one fingertip
And just one blade of grass
And its the creation of adam (me) all over again
-- born in 1968(2003), two brothers(twosisters), the french horn(thetrumpet)
Double born and double bred, two lives in the same skin
And the sun is just about to set, at its most ferocious
Screaming in orange and purple that it WILL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THIS GOOD NIGHT
And it crowds
Orange in on the trees, orange in on the corneas
Till I’m happily blinded by the light
And I burn
Embers
Like batter
fold in on themselves
And the pages to this ramshackle story crumble
im sat on my own patio with my only-sisters
And my mother stares at my confusion
Do I belong?
“Are you okay, are you feeling sick?”
She puts one hand on my forehead and one hand on her own.
Maybe she too understands
If I had a fever she would have one too
And if I burn she burns with me,
And when she burnt I burnt too
We were the same, her dry skin tells me
We are the same.
Citronella slow burn,
The kind that makes you forget fire is a small explosion.
The sun throws tones and hues
across the sky
And she throws the net across the frame
“I’m out of shape” she sighs,
Looking down at her stomach
And how menopause has changed it.
“I need it”
And yet chaos
The wind rattles the pine needles in bone curling cacophony
And the citronella is a conflagration
And the net won’t fit
And it’s hot and I’m tired
And all of the time folds like batter
into a Firestorm
I am 11 again, on the swing set that now decays somewhere
different
after dinner
and the old trees haven't been cut down yet.
I swing, my sister swings, my sister swings,
Fighting to brush the scrawny treetops with blackened, cracked sole,
Just one toe to just one leaf
And suddenly its the creation of adam:
The swing set is a bed of cherubs, carrying me up, or rather down.
Some holy divinity can only be found
in chloroplasts,
And I’ll be damned if I let my sister to it first.
The sun is just about to set, at its most ferocious
Screaming in orange and purple that it WILL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THIS GOOD NIGHT,
It crowds,
Orange in on the trees, orange in on the corneas
Till I’m happily blinded by the light
My Mother and I
Have the same eyes,
Like a matching set of dresses or headbands or suitcases,
Crystal blue and sensitive to the sun
(We wear sunglasses on rainy days).
I gaze into them as she stretches cross-hatched thread over the metal frame,
wonder if this is how she sees me,
As I see her,
Or if she sees me as I see myself
and
I fall
Into her eyes and their (they’re a) mirror to mine
And I’m across the lake, in a different backyard
A fluffy dog, my password for everything, takes no notice
Do I belong?
I have brothers here, only brothers,
bringing out burgers to eat on the patio,
Talking about marching band and mail-in college applications.
I reach out, grasp for reality, until its just one fingertip
And just one blade of grass
And its the creation of adam (me) all over again
-- born in 1968(2003), two brothers(twosisters), the french horn(thetrumpet)
Double born and double bred, two lives in the same skin
And the sun is just about to set, at its most ferocious
Screaming in orange and purple that it WILL NOT GO GENTLE INTO THIS GOOD NIGHT
And it crowds
Orange in on the trees, orange in on the corneas
Till I’m happily blinded by the light
And I burn
Embers
Like batter
fold in on themselves
And the pages to this ramshackle story crumble
im sat on my own patio with my only-sisters
And my mother stares at my confusion
Do I belong?
“Are you okay, are you feeling sick?”
She puts one hand on my forehead and one hand on her own.
Maybe she too understands
If I had a fever she would have one too
And if I burn she burns with me,
And when she burnt I burnt too
We were the same, her dry skin tells me
We are the same.
//
Amelia Roselli is a 17-year-old from Chicago, Illinois. She has just graduated from the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and will be matriculating at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, come September. Amelia enjoys playing the guitar, rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, and organizing (covid safe) parties. She currently lives at home with her parents, her two sisters, and their dog Tilly.
Amelia Roselli is a 17-year-old from Chicago, Illinois. She has just graduated from the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and will be matriculating at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, come September. Amelia enjoys playing the guitar, rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender, and organizing (covid safe) parties. She currently lives at home with her parents, her two sisters, and their dog Tilly.