She says, I worship the sun
Ron Riekki
She says, I worship the sun
when I ask her
if she believes in God
and I’ve never met her,
will never meet her,
this woman I met online,
who called me
and talked about the sun
the entire call,
an hour,
where all she talked about
was the sun
and I wanted to see
if she could sustain it,
and she could,
talking about how
it’s a star
and how she loves
the stars,
and that word—love—
kept glowing
into the conversation,
not about me,
but about the metabolic processes
of a planet that—no!
she interrupts, no!
the sun is not a planet!
and she’s so adamant,
so passionate,
and talks about A.A.
and I feel surprised
that the sun has burnt out
and we’ve moved on,
but she says, no,
that in A.A.
they forced her
to acknowledge a higher power
and that she didn’t believe in God,
but she believed in the sun,
so she let the sun
be her God
and the sun helped her to get sober
and I ask,
clarify,
Are you talking about your son?
As in, like, a daughter?
And she says,
The sun is my daughter
and I am the sun’s daughter,
and she uses the word oblateness
and I think she’s a genius
and mad
and OCD
and good
and lost
and wise
and weird
and I’m hooked
and on guard
and we’re talking at night,
late at night,
which is when I meet all people,
when the sun is sleeping,
and she’s wide awake
and I ask her if it’s hard
that she can’t look at
the thing she loves
and she tells me
that, no, she has glasses
to see the eclipse
and never misses the eclipse
and I tell her I love the moon
and she says,
If we ever fuck,
I think it will end the world
and I’m so lost at this line
and so charmed by this line
and so confused by this line
and she says she has to go
and I say something and she says, no,
she really has to get going
and she hangs up
and I go to the window,
look up,
searching.
Ron Riekki has been awarded a 2014 Michigan Notable Book, 2015 The Best Small Fictions, 2016 Shenandoah Fiction Prize, 2016 IPPY Award, 2019 Red Rock Film Fest Award, 2019 Best of the Net finalist, 2019 Très Court International Film Festival Audience Award and Grand Prix, 2020 Dracula Film Festival Vladutz Trophy, 2020 Rhysling Anthology inclusion, and 2022 Pushcart Prize. Right now, Riekki’s listening to LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great.”