To Whom It May Concern

Ron Riekki & Sharmila Voorakkara

To Whom It May Concern,

I regret to tender my resignation, but not really, because I have no
idea how a living human does this job for a living or for anything
else. The person who did this job before me must have had the mind
of a turnip, incapable of boredom or a single thought of any consequence.
I would like to inform you that I am designing a homemade Baldacchino
Supreme Bed, a curved-canopy bed, a sponge-batted bed, a bed that
I will be sleeping in from now on, from home, as I have quit and so
I’m going to be lacquered and liquored and really, I’m pretty hammered
right now, as a matter of fact. This is not your fault, I realize. But be that
as it may, let’s just say you can fetch that ball yourself. I am no one’s dog.
Or maybe I am. A corporate Iggy Pop hacksaw. I’m too drunk right now
to poem. I think you took my brain. It’s sore now, doomed. I’m bald,
iglooed. Included is a photocopy of my lungs. On my birthday, they’ll
bloom.

Respectfully,

Another Whom

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 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “The Ship Song.”

Sharmila Voorakkara received her MFA from the University of Virginia. Her first collection of poems, Fire Wheel, was published by the University of Akron Press.