Todd Mercer

If you’re reading this, and you aren’t my attorney,
that means I’ve gone on to pursue opportunities
with eternity. I’m safely deceased, a relief
from expectations, a nice break from work.
I’m finally free to express my less popular
opinions. To share my mixed reviews.
It’s been real and it’s been fun,
but it hasn’t been real fun. Some of you
I owe thanks to for making it easier to go.
Can’t figure out why a fair proportion
of people in every nation maximize their bliss
sabotaging everybody else. We’d’ve had a
decent world in my life-time, but that attitude.
Maybe later Humanism wins. It’s a long series.
If you’re in this room, odds are strong we’re relatives—
folks who meet repeatedly because of
hearth and home. Because of Grandpop
or Grandmom. Sorry we’re not close
to where you live. Traffic to the lawyer’s office
always struck me as murder, and I’m a local.
That you’d journey here warms my theoretical
cockles a little. Should I speak of solely cynical things
in this last one-way conversation? What’s that
say of me? If you’re sad that I’m in Heaven,
or wherever I’m assigned next, I probably
rooted for you too. When I had a mind and body,
we were good buddies, siblings, neighbors,
what have you. Yes, I felt it too.

Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net by in 2018. Mercer won the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. Recent work appears in: Down in the Dirt, The Lake, Praxis and Star 82 Review.

Categories: 8TH ISSUE, LITERATURE