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. His poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, The Galway Review, Bold + Italic, Litbreak, Subterranean Blue Poetry, The Blue Nib, Red Dirt Forum, and elsewhere.  His chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017 and is still available at Finishing Line Press and Amazon. His first full-length book of poetry was published last April by Kelsay Press. He lives in Massachusetts.

Up in Smoke

Its name is “Winning Writers”
Not “whining writers,”
so I try to act grown up
when the rejections
show up on my screen.

I wish the bad news came
by mail, like in olden times:
all those now famous (mostly dead)
writers who boasted about
papering the wall with rejections

I thought were so cool.
But now I think of it as odd,
sitting down to wrestle
with a manual typewriter
and your own doubts

while being confronted with “sorrys”
And “unfortunately” and “not for us.”
I’m sure I’d find that dispiriting,
hunched over my Olivetti,
blank as the notorious blank page.

But I would enjoy burning
the brush-offs along with fall leaves
back when it was legal
to burn leaves that smelled
like hope in the brisk
brand-new October world.