600 block of Jackson Ave., Muskegon, MI, Dec 6, 2025
by Ron Riekki
They say there are 200 different words for snow
in the Sámi language, like the northern Sámi
vahtsa, which is new snow on old snow, which
now is the case, driving a rented car on plowed
road, but then turning onto the street of our latest
mass shooting in Michigan and instantly it’s
unplowed, so thick with snow that it scrapes
the bottom of the vehicle, yet ice on the tires
so that the car swerves back and forth, with
a realization that I can’t stop, so I drive by
a house with caution tape lying in snow, but
it doesn’t look like the photos or videos online
of where the shooting happened and I wonder
if it’s another incident, especially since this city—
Muskegon, Michigan—has been plagued with
a dozen shootings: 9mm and Glock and “AR-
style rifle” and “stolen pistol” and “handguns”
and another shooting on the 1400 block of
Gyrock and a “19-year-old has been arraigned”
and nine killed and eleven injured in Muskegon
this year alone, a population of 38,000, and it’s
26 degrees with the wind chill, two months since
the last mass shooting; and a Democrat online
tells me it’s due to the cold, and someone else
online says it’s due to astrology, wants to know
the alignment of the stars, and I stare at the home
I think where the shooting happened, but I can’t
stop, the street empty, absolutely nobody outside,
and the house where it happened looks dead, no
lights on inside, but, later, down the street, I see
a window with bright white Christmas decorations,
a snow-colored fake tree elegant in the window,
and I swing the car around once there’s plowed
road and go down it again, still not able to stop,
still swerving, windows down, the cold frowning
into the car, a church nearby unplowed as well
as if no human has been down this street since
the shooting, the feel of abandonment, how that
tends to be the feeling of so many of these sites
of shooting, and I stop at a shop, a garage, closed
for the night, a large sign saying BLOOD’S all
in red, all in caps, such an odd name for a “front
end clinic,” the address 13-something, and
the building bone-colored; getting my bearings,
I drive, looking for anyone to talk to, but all
is winter-quiet, a worker stepping out of a back
exit of a restaurant, wiping sweat off his fore-
head with his sleeve, his breath visible, and
then, amidst all these closed stores: a liquor
store, how so many of these mass shootings
are near liquor stores and churches, parks
and cannabis dispensaries. A 4-year-old
was shot at this mass shooting. A 22-year-
old woman and 25-year-old man killed.
A worker throws out piles of cardboard
into a dumpster—no recycling—massive
letters of SAM’S DRINK ALL on the store,
such a bizarre name, like a command, and
the worker tells me he has no thoughts on
the shooting, doesn’t want to talk about
the shooting, doesn’t want me going into
the store, calls and confirms that I am not
allowed into the store, but then teenagers
walk into the liquor store and there seems
to be no problem with this. Seeing two
children alone in a car, the mother later
emerging from inside. I talk with a 14-
year-old who wanders up, says that his
birthday is tomorrow. He’s with a friend.
I ask how we stop gun violence, if they
heard about the shooting. They tell me
they know there’ve been shootings. How
do we stop them? One of them walks
away, into the store. The 14-year-old
remains, saying it’s “parenting” and
"finances," that “it gets harder every year,”
that people sell drugs to survive. I ask
how he’s avoided it: “work and school
and sports.” Football. Behind him,
the words liquor – beer – wine – lotto.
These liquor stores near mass shootings,
always so busy. The 14-year-old goes inside.
Ron Riekki co-edited Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice.