His guardian consigned him to the Memory Unit,
though he wasn’t far gone as the other no-hopers
warehoused at the place. Someone must be the healthiest
of the afflicted. Jake sees in fellow residents
the route this one’s going. Rolling. He’s a run-off risk,
libel to duck out if the CNAs blink twice. If they’re blind
to motivation. Being spoon-fed soft food ‘til the Reaper
visits Geezer Manor? Not this man’s man’s way.
Forty-some years of vetting stories for explanatory power,
for flaws with their fabrication. And how much now smudged over,
out of order? Whose iris did he almost drown in? Which sins
did he work off since commission? Certainly not all of them
before they cashiered him to this Sleepy Acres situation.
There were some bad ones. Patience isn’t on the menu
where they send you when your city doesn’t need you
like it used to, but before they pray and set a stone.

—
Todd Mercer won the Dyer-Ives Kent County Prize for Poetry (2016), the National Writers Series Poetry Prize (2016) and the Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Award (2015). His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance, appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s recent poetry and fiction appear in 100 Word Story, Flash Fiction Magazine. Fried Chicken and Coffee, The Lake, Literary Orphans, Plum Tree Tavern, Split Lip Magazine and Star 82 Review.

Try to dig thorns from your own hands.
Now let someone use both of theirs
to clear the fester that’s too self
for The Self to maneuver.
What a challenge to disprove the value
of cooperation. May as well dog out
opposable thumbs. Thanks
for having my back. Glad to
cover yours. Get some shut-eye.
It’s crazy to go this world solo
and sit constant watch. I could worry
the wood and infection from my own fingers,
but not quickly, perhaps not extract
the complete prickers. They break to pieces.
Or I ask for assistance. I offer it to,
what help these two hands can manage.
We should be freer with it, faster
to see the case for interdependence.
Try lifting yourself completely off the ground.
When that doesn’t happen, call me over.

—
Todd Mercer won the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts Flash Fiction Award for 2015, the first Woodstock Writers Festival Flash Fiction Award, and two Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s recent poetry and fiction appear in Bartleby Snopes, Eunoia Review, Magnolia Review, The Lake, Literary Orphans, Main Street Rag Anthologies, SOFTLOW Journal and Two Cities Review.

Not drowning in regrets, but he’s out too far,
where the rip-tide waylays him. He swallows
a lung-full. It proves easier to drift
even further lake-ward rather than swim in
to his clothes and keys. Go with the current,
he figures. He reaches an island’s beach strip,
it’s a couple acres, unpopulated. He spits
out the lake, then waits for morning light
to make an attempt at the mainland.
Strength can renew with a few hours’ rest.
He’ll try, if no boaters pass sooner.
There could be a search, if a beachcomber
stumbles on his shirt and shoes
by the high-line where the tide turns.
The Nightswimmer, weakened, winded,
doesn’t know how this will resolve,
but he isn’t drowning, yet.

—
Todd Mercer, a middle-brow writer, won the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts Flash Fiction Award for 2015. His digital chapbook Life-wish Maintenance appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Recent poetry and fiction appear in Eunoia Review, Kentucky Review, The Legendary, Literary Orphans, Lost Coast Review and Softblow Journal.

A Chicagoan who sees Death on the way
may then and not an angstrom before
whisper their innermost Parking secrets
to an heir, their next of kin, to a lucky care-giver
on shift when the spectre appears. Locations,
special techniques. How to swipe the Mayor’s spot
for a week and avoid towing. Ten steps
to dismantle a metal parking boot,
and reassemble it, and so roll to drive
another day. Rumors about Big Johnny,
who can erase records when he wants to,
who can wipe those debts. The time you blocked
two lanes of Upper Wacker to get a haircut.
No spaces then, per se. When the offspring lean in,
one fader says, Wabash & Balbo—two bucks
for the long weekend. Three should you wish
valet service. He coughs half a lung out, croaks,
Ask for Murray, say I sent you,
say I told you before shoving off.

—
Todd Mercer won the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts Flash Fiction Award for 2015 and was runner-up in the Palm Beach Plein Air Poetry Awards. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s poetry and fiction appear in journals such as: Apocrypha & Abstractions, The Camel Saloon, Cheap Pop, The Lake, The Legendary, Main Street Rag, Midwestern Gothic and Spartan.