by Ron Riekki

I’d pray.
Now that I no longer work in the prison,
I still pray.

Either way,
I pray.
With nearly eight billion people

in the world,
I imagine the air
filled

with prayers
thick as
the gentlest

snow,
falling
upwards.

Ron Riekki has published poetry in Rattle, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, fiction in Threepenny Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Wigleaf, nonfiction in River Teeth, New Orleans Review, and more. Right now, Riekki is listening to Richard Burton read Dylan Thomas’ “Fern Hill.”