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Janelle Solviletti is a writer from Boston, Massachusetts. She is the author of two poetry collections, Euphony and The Cameo. Previously, she published works in The Horn Pond Review, The Feathertale Review and The Lyrical Somerville. She attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and currently lives and works in Boston.

Hometown Concerto

Janelle Solviletti

At your request
I bring in the cellos,
remind the violins
to beat loudly
until decrescendo.
Your one-hand beckon
catches me by surprise,
same as when we
cold-shouldered rehearsal.
You say, a composer without first-chair
is like November without ripe color
but somewhere in the off season
our tongues frost over
like an oath to autumn,
and the auditorium hushed
our hands go on with the show.
Now this dream never goodbyes.
I would give up our language
to steady that midnight
in your hometown but
I am lost in concerto
too electric in your current of gestures
and now our dewed palms swiftly
meet and part
with an audience to cue the show.
What a noisy amen to interpret.
I am on the precipice of your greatest work breathing in chorus
living in black and white film
preparing the melody for you.
And from your high stand, you’ll ask for translation:
Two sad hearts meet before fall over accordion swoons,
I want to tell you
what it feels like
to bow in return
for the language of strings
but the pendulum swings.
And now I pass through
your neighborhood cloaked.

— Janelle Solviletti

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