Two Poems by Alec Solomita

 

Forecasts  

 

For some, August is the beginning of winter, 

even though it’s eighty-five degrees 

and trees are colossally green, 

shading the upper porches on the 

street’s three-stories where vacationing 

kids, buoyant and bright, smoke legal weed,  

“Any day now,” one young woman says 

loud enough so I hear her on my own porch. 

“the leaves will rust and drift to the ground, 

turning the branches into skeletons.” 

“But lovely skeletons,” a friend replies, 

“brown and black and opening up the sky.” 

 

 

 

Summer Dances 

 

The branches outside my window, 

flush with motionless green leaves 

against an August white-blue sky, 

are orchestrated suddenly by a murmuring 

breeze into dancing the rhumba. 

A soft rhythm section sways  

into a flickering tempo, soft and subtle 

and calming until the wind picks up 

and the compliant, gifted leaves 

switch without a moment’s pause 

to a sweet, percussive samba.

Alec Solomita is a writer working in Massachusetts. His fiction has appeared in the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, and Southword Journal, among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal. His poetry has appeared in many journals, including Poetica, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Lake, One Art, and several anthologies. His chapbook “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press. His full-length poetry book, “Hard To Be a Hero,” was released by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2021. He’s just finished another, titled “Small Change.”