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.
And Now I Come to You
And now I come to you
after long, sour festivities
to find the mild, grey light
softer and less restrictive
than I remember,
if memory, that craven servant, serves.
To rid myself of domestics
who stand dumb witness
at my elbow or with keyhole tricks
is all I want to do.
And then as their society falls
away, I’ll come to you
who haven’t changed – much
and won’t, much, before I
really join you. Before I do,
I’ll calm in your always motion,
watch some of your smooth
or serrated petals nod then
bounce up quivering at each drop’s touch.
Country
I feel like a chapter I your life,
a treat for the critics as they
hunt and gather – “overwrought”
“not fully realized.”
Or a sprig of loosestrife, a word
you taught me, one the country poets use
in lists with Red Clover and Queen Anne’s Lace,
a word so full you touch it
only lightly as if it might burst.
Like that other potent weed, the one that
leaks white – what? Fluff? The one that explodes
in the summer, I believe.
Remember when we told Nicki it would
be a great name for her band?
They sang country. She sure was a country girl,
with her cloudy, slitted, yellow eyes,
her breasts long and loose under workshirts,
her hard voice, her blunt fingers.
The Galway Review 