Many are chosen, few are called
at the DMV Bureau. Those with time to spare
and those without a precious moment free
huddle hopeless lo these many hours,
waiting to win the lottery prize of being waited on.
A spot at the state clerk’s business window,
a chance to write checks and drive one’s car,
legal-like. I may not get there with you,
to the line’s front or the other side of these
two hundred souls. Some are simmering,
others drift in daydreams. The Now Serving numbers
change in no discernible order. A few break
for the door, opting to save their bodies
and/or minds from interminable dusk
as the clock spins and the masses
wait as long as wait is going to take.
Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net by in 2018. Mercer won the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prize. His chapbook Life-wish Maintenance is posted at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in: A New Ulster, The Lake, and Mojave River Review.
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