We keep losing people from afar, friends and lovers we haven’t seen in years but remember young. In my dreams, I see them lying in transparent cases, full of youth, full of color, fine and clear, like the glass flowers fashioned so lovingly by the Blaschkas, father and son, shimmering now in a museum’s lucent cabinets. Rows of them multiply as the unfaltering years slip by. Still as grass they lie, eyes gently shut, faces relaxed, but lit with the glow of orchids.
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Alec Solomita is a writer and artist working in the Boston area. His fiction has appeared in The Southwest Review, The Mississippi Review, Southword Journal, and Peacock, among other publications. He was shortlisted by the Bridport Prize and Southword Journal. His poetry has appeared in Poetica, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Litbreak, Driftwood Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Galway Review, The Lake, and elsewhere, including several anthologies. His photographs and drawings can be found in Fatal Flaw, Young Ravens Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, and other publications. He took the cover photo and designed the cover of his poetry chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” which was published in 2017.
Lightwood 