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’s working on another. He lives in Massachusetts.

---

Seraph

Today I tweezed your chin and cheeks,
dressed you up in your favorite skirt,
poured your Chex and added milk
blueberries, banana, and syrup. Then,

I read Muldoon and drew marvels from his
ludic, vexing antics. You used to teach
with him in, as they used to say, New Jersey,
where the white queen and the black sued

for your favor. But they hadn’t a chance
with you and your distaste for the buttery
pats of enthroned literati, in fact
“distaste” doesn’t quite say it. “Angel-like”

is more apt to describe your tilt toward the
world — not gentle or sweet but lucid
with joy. So lucid with sorrow, you felt few
of the striving appetites – your hunger

was for food, sex, family, nature, work,
not glory. Am I saying you were better than
those gluttons (the voluble scarecrow
and the amiable huckster)? Yes. And now

your appetites have shrunk and you can
no longer satisfy them by yourself (a series
of strangers lifting up the life-sustaining spoon,
a chair in the shower, grab bars and walkers).

The old tigers chase around their tree
while you teeter and flutter — a seraph
singing hymns that rise toward heaven
then dissolve in the pale air.