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. His first full-length book of poetry, “Hard To Be a Hero,” was published  by Kelsay Press in 2021. Both can be found on Amazon. He’s just finished another, “Small Change.” He lives in Massachusetts.

Mo

There was a kid in our gang
(and this is many years ago),
not gang really, more kids
hanging-out, and this one,
this kid, was a hanger-on.
Lots of young groups even now
have a kid like that out of sympathy
or to have someone to ridicule
behind his back or to his front,
and sometimes to hurt the schmo
(this was a long time ago when
people said schmo). “Hurt” i.e.
thinking up cruel little things
like coaxing him tell the same
story over and over and laughing
each time, before reminding the schmo
that we’d heard this one forty times before.

Or once, and this was not nice
when he was tripping his brains
out, eyes wide and weird, and sitting
on Gina Fox’s lawn by himself,
we tossed a drive-by cherry bomb
that made him jump so high,
we laughed for half an hour.
(Ain’t that cruel, that poor
son of a bitch?) His named was Mo
(and not just for the sake of rhyme).
He’s still alive in his seventies,
the old schmo, on the other side
of the country with a third wife.
And now, of course, I feel like
an asshole for the perfect throw
that made him jump so high
on Gina’s lawn that tears of joy
flowed from our uneasy, unsure eyes.