Ron Riekki
Rat-a-tat
for Lisa Fay Coutley
As the poem goes, so does the poet.
I'm not black. I'm not white. I'm Greek.
I keep wondering if I'm Jewish.
Here is a throat. Here is a bone.
Even the gods can be killed
in ways that would make medics cringe.
I'm sorry you think I'm crazy.
I was just trying hard to make poetry
be heard. It's hard, this desk,
this night, this time. I'm thinking
of becoming a pair of ballet slippers.
I feel, then, that maybe I could slip
into a suicide note and end it with
something hopeful where the child
would live, would lick the wind,
the wick, the lack of everything, gone.
Bio
Ron Riekki's books include U.P., The Way North, and Here.