GRIFFITH PARK, HAUNTED THEME PARK, DUSK, 2010 - Ron Riekki

Jon and Cinderella
walk up the hill slowly,
tired;
this is the third week
of work
and their knees hurt;
they’re sick.
They’re both in straitjackets.
I am too.
It’s minimum wage,
survival money.
It’s bad out there.
Cinderella wants to be a rapper.
She’s from Montana.
There’s nothing hip-hop about her,
except she curses a lot.
She thinks that’s what it means
to be black.
It pisses me off,
but I don’t say anything.
I can’t.
I have a steel bar in my mouth
all night long.
Jon had three words
in Inglourious Basterds
for one of its deleted scenes.
He’s 44.
He’s getting divorced.
He tells us how to make it in L.A.
as an actor.
I watch them walk up the hill
and it’s eating them,
this hill;
it’s taking something
from them.
It’s taking something
from me.
I never thought I’d get this far
and have this little.
I was told if I was kind
it would all work out.
The person who told me that
has M.S.
She’s a painter
who can no longer paint.
She used to do outdoor scenes
like this one,
except without the people.

Originally published by Wilderness House Literary Journal 2010

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 Au Revoir Simone's "A Violent Yet Flammable World."