After the fist fight at the bus stop

               After the fist fight at the bus stop, we all stand there, still waiting for the bus, and
the boys are gone, three of them, because odd
numbers make everything worse and it was in
winter when it’s too cold to argue, but there it
was, the fists and the notebook papers every-
where and the snowflakes punching all of our
faces so gently and it all came on so fast, this
stop where there are too many of us, the red
apartment complex painted with fire where
seventy-nine percent of us live and fathers
buried in the mines and their soot-in-brains
and the noon dynamite explosions on week-
days every week like clockwork and work
in the mines is for those whose history has
been swallowed, and there is a peace, now,
with the boys gone, the bloody boys, with
their tumbling fight, the circus-y wrestling,
the barks of I’ll kill you and no one killed,
no one, really, all that hurt, just a bunch of
books destroyed, covers lying like corpses
on the ground, and no one picks them up;
instead we are all silent, the snow silent,
the bus in the far distant silent, the mines
just out of sight screaming their silence.

On the day they fired me

            On the day they fired me, they took all my possessions and never gave them back,
because corporations can do anything they want
and I worked hard for them, overtime and under-
time and holidays and holy days and when I was
sick and when I was dying and even after I died
I worked for three months for free, but still they
fired me, but I found out that four months later
they fired my boss who fired me and I thought
of that moment, with her, surprised, absolutely
unprepared for karma, and it made me smile to
know that we all fail in the end.

Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2014 Michigan Notable Book, 2015 The Best Small Fictions, 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2019 Best of the Net finalist, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. Right now, Riekki’s listening to Cat Powers’ “Werewolf.”