Recovery Valley By Alec Solomita

They say St. Peter cried so hard after his betrayal

that his tears formed two fixed furrows, one down each cheek.

Richard II imagines himself and the loyal Aumerle

weeping until their tears “have fretted us a pair of graves.”

Hamlet compares his own hesitance to a visiting actor’s 

show of feigned torment. “What would he do,/ 

Had he the motive and the cue for passion/

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears . . .”

I wept at your quietus 

when what was really demanded

was a decade of barking and moaning.

I should have wailed, whimpered, roared, and shrieked,

rooted my broken heart out of my broken body

and flung it into the seas incarnadine.

Well, people no longer speak 

with such high-flown passion

and they rarely grieve in the old-fashioned way,

at least in the suburbs of Boston.

So I’d missed, I thought, the chance 

properly to say goodbye.

But here in Recovery Valley 

amid the tall green trees,

bears, bobcats, therapists,

and ticks, the real thing sneaks up

on me as I lie on my hard

mattress, once used

by silent monks after

their evening beaker of port.

Grief grips my heart,

hurling out tears till they

raise the sea level of my small room.

Soon, though, it’s all too real

and my own liquid solace,

even a mug or two 

of sherry, is nowhere

to be found in this healthy,

duplicitous wasteland.

So much,

I whisper between sobs,

for mindfulness,

so much for social support,

so much for coping skills.

and so much for Shakespeare’s

keening minions.

I still need a bottle, some ice

and a glass to smooth 

my journey as the evenings pass.

Alec Solomita is a writer working in Massachusetts. His poetry has appeared in many journals, including Poetica, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Galway Review, The Lake, The Rye Whiskey Review, 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, “Small Change.”