My father floated in springtime,
not too high just an inch or so
off the ground, drifting from
bud to opening bud.
Tilting his head to a low sky,
he noticed things.
“Marvelous, the
lilacs are starting.”
“Far away thunder.”
He yelled at the TV.
“You’re full of shit!” he yelled at
Ronald Reagan, then turning to us,
on the couch. “He’s full of shit.”
And back to the TV in a funny, stagey voice,
“Mr. President, you are full of shit!”
Wakeful, he’d watch Johnny
then something else.
Mornings, he went to Mass,
seven, eight o’clock, before work.
Mornings were hard.
He coughed and hacked.
He’d come out of the bathroom
a gray faced man scuttling to
work in the cold, bits of ragged
tissue staunching his shaving cuts.
Alec Solomita is a writer working in the Boston area. His fiction has appeared in the Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal. His poetry has appeared in Poetica, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Driftwood Press, The Rye WhiskeyReview, The Galway Review, and elsewhere, including several anthologies. His poetry chapbook “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published in 2017. His full-length poetry book,“Hard To Be a Hero,” was released by Kelsay Books in May.