Alec Solomita’s fiction has appeared in the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, and The Drum (audio), among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal, and named a finalist by the Noctua Review. His poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Ekphrastic Review, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, The Galway Review, Bold + Italic, The Blue Nib, Red Dirt Forum, and elsewhere. His chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017 and is still available on Amazon. He lives in Massachusetts, USA.

 

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Why the Beverly Hillbillies Really Went off the Air

Anxiety simmers like Progresso soup
as I retrench in front of the color-filled desktop.
When I wash my hands I have to stoop
and sing to myself the twenty flight bop

and that causes my sweet back to ache
and traces fault lines on my sedentary palms.
I look for delivery options but they’re all fake.
Sorry! No times are available, don’t be alarmed.

But I am. Alarmed, alone, old, and scared.
The pablum on Facebook has reached its peak.
Stay positive!! Read a book!! But I just stare
as the exclamation points begin to creak

before they topple slowly into bleak elipses.
And when I worry, when I show my fear,
FB friends say, we really don’t need these
sorts of negative thoughts during a plague year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,
Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
I’ll get off Facebook and watch the rain.
Or go back to my computer, take another look.

What did happen to Jethro, Jed,
Miss Hathaway, and all them folk?