Sitting idle, with much to say but little worth effect,
we came as something else, other and
indifferent to ourselves, but enamoured with our roles.

Façades in hiding, backs turned from Alice’s looking glass,
in grandiose teaspoon swirls, whetting crumbs in parts,
we masked ourselves as each other’s coffee orders.

Me in trying to be light and sweet, a lapse in the foam
of my spontaneity, perpetuating the whimsy
of coco powdered coffee art—that was my inverted self

in your cappuccino that day. While you, a vampiric shadow
out in daylight’s dwellings (wearing dark maroon),
less mysterious than the waitstaff, but alike in sarcasm,

pretended to be my order;
black, no sugar, a little bitter.
In reality we were neither of those things.

below the china clutter,
we feigned to be the flavour of the day.
A lie worn for a persona we dared share with strangers.

Amelia C. Eilertsen

 

Amelia C. Eilertsen is a queer, Zambian-Norwegian mixed-race writer with a BA in Creative and Professional Writing from Bangor University. Her life is a cosmic swirl of insomnia, travel, and the brief spaces between the making of a moment and watching it pass by. She has had poems published with Poets’ Choice, High Shelf Press and Passengers Journal. She can be reached @ameliaconny on Instagram.

© 2021