“Drops” Image by Pam Brodersen

I beg the counselor
to help me return
to avoidance, but he
says I need to be
out in the crimson
pool of people,
that things get worse
before they get breathing
and I open my eyes
in the rivered room,
its throat of night,
and beg myself
to leave the doom-
birthdays of boot
camp and realize
fully that family
exists in rooms
nearby where
the father
cannot allow
himself
to be
strangled

I turn on
the light,

kneel
and insist
God
enter
every
cloud
of me

insist

insist

insist

Ron Riekki wrote U.P.: a novel (Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read nominated) and edited The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book from the Library of Michigan and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award/Grand Prize shortlist, Midwest Book Award, Foreword Book of the Year, and Next Generation Indie Book Award), Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).