Notes:
[1] Ron Riekki, “Looking in the Mirror During Desert Storm,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 17.
[2] Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, Or, The Evening Redness in the West (Vintage Books, 1992), 21.
[3] Ron Riekki, “The Helicopter on Fire When I Was in the Military,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 66.
[4] Wallace Stevens, The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011), 206.
[5] Ron Riekki, “When I was in A-School in the Navy,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 26.
[6] Ron Riekki, “They say that,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 34.
[7] Ron Riekki, “22,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 49.
[8] Ron Riekki, “In the military, they made us paint the bottom of the stairs,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 40.
[9] Ron Riekki, “My PTSD counselor told me to”,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 76.
[10] Ron Riekki, “The Seconds When I Left / The Counseling Office and Felt the PTSD / Might Be Leaving This Time Forever,” in Blood/Not Blood Then the Gates: Poems (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 78.
