Contributor: Todd Mercer

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Nightswimmer Junior and her eponymous predecessor
get their kicks from risks, love life more from it.
After their platonic friendship’s rolled a couple years
They take a month’s bills money to the casino.
When they slink out the exit, ninety-nine percent of it
has gone to fund the programs of the Grand Traverse Band
of Odawas & Chippewas. Nightswimmer, on his honor
retired from the rip-tide adventures says to Junior,
“Screw the promise. Let’s go swim.” Only then
can he clear his head of new financial anxiety.
That’s them at 4 am spotted miles off Charlevoix
by a John Cross Fishing vessel, logged on the report.
She crawls, he backstrokes. He needs more oxygen
than he used to, but hey, not bad for an old man.
He assures Junior she won’t need to drag him
to land. This one illicit swim, then the end of gambling.


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TODD MERCER was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance, appeared at Right Hand Pointing. Mercer’s recent work appears in Literary Orphans, The Magnolia Review, Praxis and Zero Flash.