New Poetry by Ron Riekki

In the military, three of us got 

killed in combat.  One got killed 

by the police in the country we were 

in.  Two committed suicide.  One 

got killed in training.  And three got 

killed by accident.  It wasn’t the war 

so much that killed us, but everything. 

We were dying before the war.  And 

after.  During it, I realized it was all 

the same thing.  One day Elijah was 

complaining about the evaporated 

milk and the next day he was dead. 

I wish the recruiter would’ve said 

that; I remember when he showed 

me a photo of a pile of money, a real 

corny photo, but the money looked 

good, piled up like a tiny hill that 

you’d see in a nursery rhyme and 

it was glowing a different kind of 

green, like a jungle green, like it 

was hinting where I’d be going in 

the future, and instead of showing 

that fake pile of money, he should 

have showed me a pile of evaporated 

milk and a pile of death.  That 

would have been more honest.

- © Ron Riekki 2023

Ron Riekki’s books include Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates (Middle West Press, poetry), My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press, hybrid), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, nonfiction), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press, fiction).  Right now, Riekki’s listening to David Arnold & Nicholas Dodd's "Nothing Sinister" from the Casino Royale film score.