Alec Solomita’s fiction has appeared in Peacock Journal, 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, The New Criterion, The Galway Review, Bold + Italic, Litbreak, 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, “Glass Flowers.” He lives in Massachusetts.

Along the Same Lines

Now, along the same lines,
this cousin of mine, Johnny, his mother
sometimes forgot that my father married a Jew.
Aunt Jackie didn’t join those in Dad’s
family who shunned us after the wedding,
but she did screw up sometimes, like when she
confided to my mom, “When I learned
Johnny was dating a Christian girl I fell
on my knees and kissed the ground.”

Long before,
when me and Johnny were kids, Dad’s
two brothers would visit from Long Island,
families in tow. I was entranced —
Uncle Sal and Uncle Al on the front porch
in shorts and short-sleeved untuckable shirts, slack white
calves resting on the railing, heaped Italian hair combed
impeccably, going a little gray, drinking beer
from cans, cracking wise, squinting through cigar smoke,
perched beside them, their unkind, chirpy wives.

My dad
was the youngest and an artist. They gave him the business,
Al taking his chewy fat cigar out of his mouth to suggest
that maybe Dad was a little light in the loafers.
And his wife would cluck and slap him gently on the arm.
Uncle Sal, quieter, just talking through his cigar occasionally
to mention that Boston sure had a lot of moulinyans.