Ron Riekki
hot
The turkeys came again
when I was playing basketball
on a court where the rim was locked
with chains, the net enslaved, the town’s hatred
of basketball players, near the marina,
where the bourgeoisie sit bored
on their floating porches, one yelling to me
after I made a shot, Yaaaaaaaay!, sarcasm,
as if exercise is a waste, as if all that matters
is large middle-class windows and their saws
that constantly destroy the quiet, building
onto homes that do not need to be
built on, and the turkeys come again.
I thought they were ducks. I don’t know birds.
I just know there were eight little ones. Were.
Now seven. I look for the one who last week
had the fishhook caught in his beak, how
a father and son stood staring down at it,
doing nothing, just staring, as if they just
wanted to enjoy the helplessness, leaving it
alone once they were bored with the blood.
I went over, basketball tucked in my bilingual
armpit, the heat like fangs. The other turkeys
had given up, had circled this little thing
and then quit, leaving it to struggle, the fishing
line wrapped around branches, the child-bird
kicking, then quitting, then kicking, trying
to escape the trash of the world, and so I took out
my keys and sawed silently at the line,
the bird silent too, then suddenly going mad
with desperation, then collapsing, silent again, so I quit
with the line, instead hacking at the stacked branches,
not caring if my car keys would be destroyed,
and I cut through and the tiny turkey ran off,
the line following behind it, worried it’d get caught
somewhere else, but it was gone, quick, violent,
brutal with escape, then silence, then saws, more saws,
saws saws saws. I turned and went back to the court,
shot around with my skeletal body, sunburned. A week later,
the turkeys came back. I watched them, the one bird
gone, all these other beaks clean with dirt. And then, as if
this court is haunted with strangeness, a flare shot straight
into the sky. I watched, a weak star falling back to this
hot earth, landing in the water. I saw a couple staring
at the shoreline on the other side, intense, one pulling out
a phone, holding it up, filming. I thought maybe someone
was drowning. Why film that? I walked towards them and saw
the fire, how the shoreline was bloody with flames, the bushes
like straw, California as kindling, how the smoke was crashing
into the nearby homeless tents. And my girlfriend had left me
two days ago, told me she couldn’t handle any more of my broken
pieces. I thought of something a creative writing teacher of mine
had said: I find it funny how after someone gets divorced, suddenly
they want to start getting involved in social justice. They’re doing it
for themselves, to brag, to feel good about themselves. It’s all sub-
text. Read it. He stood in front a chalkboard, no chalk anywhere in sight,
as if chalk was extinct, his jaw showing years of alcoholism. And I
almost didn’t do anything, almost went back to shooting around, as if
he was right, but he’s wrong. The vice of advice. All I know is:
there are a billion colors in the world. I ran towards the fire, a jogger
heading in the opposite direction, no mask, as if the pandemic is just
a short story; I yelled to him, asking if he had a phone, my nurse’s mask
stuck to the sweat of my mouth. I told him to report the fire. What fire?
I pointed, ran away from him, got to it, the alarms in the far distance,
and just started stomping down, not knowing what I was doing, no fire
training, no fire guidance, no fire Bibles, no fire knowledge, no fire
tongue in my fireless head. I noticed my shoes getting hot. The smoke
entered into the cave of my mouth so that I struggled to breathe, ran
to the water, jumped in, my shoes soaked, ran back, figuring soaking wet
tennis shoes would be hard to burn, and I started kicking, stomping,
the flames swallowing my body, everything useless, this revelation
at how hell can’t be stopped, not even paused, how hell just creates more
hell, how my feet were burning, even wet, boiling, how I gave up, looked up,
saw the engines, multiple, the sky an art gallery of clouds, the water cyanotic
behind me, and the way these machines came straight at me, furious, with
the heat,
now,
always increasing
when I was playing basketball
on a court where the rim was locked
with chains, the net enslaved, the town’s hatred
of basketball players, near the marina,
where the bourgeoisie sit bored
on their floating porches, one yelling to me
after I made a shot, Yaaaaaaaay!, sarcasm,
as if exercise is a waste, as if all that matters
is large middle-class windows and their saws
that constantly destroy the quiet, building
onto homes that do not need to be
built on, and the turkeys come again.
I thought they were ducks. I don’t know birds.
I just know there were eight little ones. Were.
Now seven. I look for the one who last week
had the fishhook caught in his beak, how
a father and son stood staring down at it,
doing nothing, just staring, as if they just
wanted to enjoy the helplessness, leaving it
alone once they were bored with the blood.
I went over, basketball tucked in my bilingual
armpit, the heat like fangs. The other turkeys
had given up, had circled this little thing
and then quit, leaving it to struggle, the fishing
line wrapped around branches, the child-bird
kicking, then quitting, then kicking, trying
to escape the trash of the world, and so I took out
my keys and sawed silently at the line,
the bird silent too, then suddenly going mad
with desperation, then collapsing, silent again, so I quit
with the line, instead hacking at the stacked branches,
not caring if my car keys would be destroyed,
and I cut through and the tiny turkey ran off,
the line following behind it, worried it’d get caught
somewhere else, but it was gone, quick, violent,
brutal with escape, then silence, then saws, more saws,
saws saws saws. I turned and went back to the court,
shot around with my skeletal body, sunburned. A week later,
the turkeys came back. I watched them, the one bird
gone, all these other beaks clean with dirt. And then, as if
this court is haunted with strangeness, a flare shot straight
into the sky. I watched, a weak star falling back to this
hot earth, landing in the water. I saw a couple staring
at the shoreline on the other side, intense, one pulling out
a phone, holding it up, filming. I thought maybe someone
was drowning. Why film that? I walked towards them and saw
the fire, how the shoreline was bloody with flames, the bushes
like straw, California as kindling, how the smoke was crashing
into the nearby homeless tents. And my girlfriend had left me
two days ago, told me she couldn’t handle any more of my broken
pieces. I thought of something a creative writing teacher of mine
had said: I find it funny how after someone gets divorced, suddenly
they want to start getting involved in social justice. They’re doing it
for themselves, to brag, to feel good about themselves. It’s all sub-
text. Read it. He stood in front a chalkboard, no chalk anywhere in sight,
as if chalk was extinct, his jaw showing years of alcoholism. And I
almost didn’t do anything, almost went back to shooting around, as if
he was right, but he’s wrong. The vice of advice. All I know is:
there are a billion colors in the world. I ran towards the fire, a jogger
heading in the opposite direction, no mask, as if the pandemic is just
a short story; I yelled to him, asking if he had a phone, my nurse’s mask
stuck to the sweat of my mouth. I told him to report the fire. What fire?
I pointed, ran away from him, got to it, the alarms in the far distance,
and just started stomping down, not knowing what I was doing, no fire
training, no fire guidance, no fire Bibles, no fire knowledge, no fire
tongue in my fireless head. I noticed my shoes getting hot. The smoke
entered into the cave of my mouth so that I struggled to breathe, ran
to the water, jumped in, my shoes soaked, ran back, figuring soaking wet
tennis shoes would be hard to burn, and I started kicking, stomping,
the flames swallowing my body, everything useless, this revelation
at how hell can’t be stopped, not even paused, how hell just creates more
hell, how my feet were burning, even wet, boiling, how I gave up, looked up,
saw the engines, multiple, the sky an art gallery of clouds, the water cyanotic
behind me, and the way these machines came straight at me, furious, with
the heat,
now,
always increasing
Biography
|
Ron Riekki’s books include I have been warned not to write about this (Main Street Rag), Niiji (Cyberwit, co-written with Sally Brunk), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press). Riekki co-edited Undocumented (Michigan State University Press) and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead (McFarland), and edited The Many Lives of It (McFarland), And Here (MSU Press), Here (MSU Press, Independent Publisher Book Award), and The Way North (Wayne State University Press, Michigan Notable Book).
|
