The Roaring 20’s Are Roaring Already
& 2019 was 1919 & they were refusing to wear masks
then & they’re refusing to wear masks now & a cousin
who was an alcoholic in high school is an alcoholic in old
age & my limp I had as a kid is a limp I have as an old
man & there is this feeling that nothing changes but then
a Buddhist monk friend, completely committed, shaved
head & unisex kayasa that he says with laughter is, yes,
like wearing a curtain, “but it’s a comfortable curtain”
& he explains everything changes, that impermanence
is at the heart of Buddhism, & that hearts change, pump,
& stop, & decay, & spread out as dust across the world
where we breathe in parts of a million hearts every day.
About the Author: Ron Riekki’s books include 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). Right now, he’s listening to Elliott Smith’s “Cupid’s Trick.”
Image Credit: Russell Patterson “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” Public Domain
As It Ought To Be 
