Where does mercy end? 
 Does it end on the front porch with family?
 Does it end with old age and an empty home? 
 Does mercy end with a lonely hospital bed and Facetime goodbyes? 
 Does mercy end where our skin begins? 
 Does it end at gated communities or red lines? 
 Does mercy end by language or accent? 
 Does mercy end in bank account balance? 
 Does mercy end in sidewalk sleeping bags? 
 Does mercy end in prison cells? 
 Maybe it ends in solitary confinement adrift in Isolation? 
 Does Mercy end in missing persons reports? 
 Does mercy end in Domestic Violence calls?
 Does mercy end in shelters and food bank shelves? 
 Does mercy end in track marks and overdose? 
 Does mercy end in a final dose of insulin?
 Does it end with a stutter or anxious ticks? 
 Does mercy end with depression? 
 Maybe mercy ends when imagined voices flood a mind? 
 Does mercy end in being forgotten? 
  
 Where does mercy end? 
 Does mercy end in a uniform in a foreign land? 
 Does mercy end with a political identity? 
 Maybe mercy ends at the gates of a re-education camp?
 Does mercy end at reservation border lines? 
 Does mercy end with acceptable collateral damage?
 Does mercy end at the borders between nations? 
 Does mercy end at different altars? 
 Does mercy end in a courtroom? 
  
 Where does mercy end? 
 Does mercy end in the difference between us? 
 Does mercy end at the sins I have committed? 
 Does mercy end when ears are closed to other voices?
 Does mercy end at each other’s hands? 
  
 Maybe it ends because we let it 
 If mercy ends by our own hands; it can begin again