The Genius Behind Nil-Nisi-Bonum Cards

Death, to nail it down, is his bread and butter,

His prime and only livelihood,

The hook upon which he hangs his existence,

As a composer of greetings for the recently deceased,

A sensitive spirit, he, who heads up the copy department

At Nil-Nisi-Bonum Cards, headquartered in Valley Park, Mo.

To say that he has a "feel" for the just-right phrase

Capable of comforting the newly arrived to the "other side"

Would be to sell way too short his stellar talents,

His ability to soothe souls having crossed that great divide

Between life and the vast, everlasting afterlife,

Freshly taken from the midst, the medias res, of the quick.

For three decades, he's been Nil-Nisi-Bonum's go-to man,

The lead architect of its various campaigns to profit from the dead,

By creating cheap cards that communicate with loved ones

In "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."

And his success has been tremendous, nothing short of stupendous,

Such is his uncanny affinity with his subject matter.

The principals of Nil-Nisi-Bonum Cards can't begin to understand

How he crafts bites, squibs, encomiums, bromides, pieties

Whose poignance and vicarious empathy

Never fail to hit home, reach deep, to the elegiac core,

Touch those just getting acquainted with defunctness -

Consolations, regrets, sorrows, requiescat in paces -

The stuff of down-to-the-salt-of-the-earth human grief,

Expressed in words wrought with enlightened humanity,

Conveying the pain of those left behind, for those lately passed:

"Dearly departed wife, my shattered heart

Can't find the right beat, to emulate your stilled metronome.

As such, I'm having a pacemaker implanted, to keep me regular.";

"Oh, my severely, dearly missed husband of over sixty-five years,

The drear absence of your wheezing, hacking, gasping for breath

Drives me crazy. The severe silence connects me to you.";

"Child of mine, taken at stillbirth, as if by divine design,

Know that though nothing can bring back your flesh,

You live in every waking thought I have of you, when I eat sashimi.";

"Sweet 'Missy,' 'Suzie Q,' 'X-Chromosome Essie,'

Surrogate mother of our in-vitro-scrambled ovum and sperm,

We love you, despite your fatal third-trimester miscarriage.";

"Dear Innocencia Soledad Maria Llena de Gracias,

Had you not been ravaged by scorpions, emigrating to the U.S.,

I wouldn't be having such joy, raising your seven kids, in Juarez."

This humble sampling of his greatest work

Belies the precocious genius of multitudinous creations

That flow yet, from his vital, fertile mind, after three fruitful decades,

During which he's pretended to exist, traffic, thrive among the living,

Albeit being every bit as dead as the deadest among the recipients

Of his immortal Nil-Nisi-Bonum death-wishes.