At the VA waiting room,

Ron Riekki

“I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.”

–Robert Frost,

“Acquainted with the Night”

they have decorated everything
with boredom. The walls are made
of brick ennui and the carpets are Saxony

apathy and the doors are an impressive
fiberglass weariness. The vet next to me
has trouble sitting, so he stands. The vet

next to him has trouble standing, so he sits.
I have trouble too. So does the room.
The room went through rehab, but it didn’t help.

I look at the two other vets. I think about
the word hero and then I think about the word
hat and then I think about a bunch of other stuff

and before I know it, the door opens up
and someone loudly mispronounces my name.

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 Christine and the Queens’ “Christine.”