RON RIEKKI

When I worked

on the ambulance, I did CPR
on shadows.  I still have claustro-

phobia from those months and
months and months and months

where all I did was dream of
meridian Morse Code, humans

who were chimneys with heart-
attack lungs, indifferent to all

their addictions, hung, passive,
telling me they don’t care if

they die young, but they won’t—
they’ll have long slow deaths

the color of silence, stillbirth
histories, deserts of cold long

nothingness, and I was punched
in the face by a grandmother

who was hallucinating a haze
of old cloud-fog.  And when

I worked in the prison, all
of the inmates’ pockets were

torn, telling me they did it
for the struggle, and, yes, I

remember the gazebo in
the prison, how it would

be filled—its heaven-white
paint—filled with the saddest

murderer frowns, lifetime
bids, sleepers lost to awake-

ness, brothers tossing their
crying into certain absence.

And when I worked in
the military, they put me

in the burn pits for fun,
bits of ash floating up

into the wee night, small
moon like it was hiding,

fearful, a who from some
unseen owl ready to feast.