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.

Writer’s Block

On the near corner is Henry’s Market
and its enormous jar full of pickles,
a dead pigeon on the sidewalk
in front. Down the street my first
love, freckled Marie Mcafferty,
age nine, sits on her porch steps
bouncing a tennis ball.
I reach another turn
and my first real girlfriend
Judy Klein, age fourteen,
teaches me to French kiss
with her chapped lips
and timid pink tongue.
Farther down, my,
infant brother dies in his crib.
Just past baby Richard,
my dad loses his job
and the family has to move.
At the very next turn
I quit high school and take drugs.
Round this third corner MLK
is killed, Mother weeps.
I hurry along the sidewalk
past Mom’s cancer, Dad’s fall,
a romance with a shiny new redhead,
a lost wife, the coming of age.
Finally, ’round the last corner
is old Henry’s Market again,
which starts to fade from my sight
as I stare, like a fog falling on a river.