Mark DeCarteret

THE MISREADING

the snow's failed us again:
all the waving of fronds & some long-gone
god's long-anticipated entrance

we had quarters saved up for more light
& some ships moored in evening's last stutter
but most sat tapped-out on an overturned bucket

it's all over everything anyhow
this plume of regret & the pigeon shit
a commuter weighted down w/more dry cleaning

only one of the twelve clapped their hands
some using their thighs & another a book
or the hack of a microphone

but I entertained winter w/the part least objectionable
where a spider's pinned itself to a mirror
& the corner of the room is repeating its dustiest of mantras

Mark DeCarteret's poetry has appeared in AGNI, Atlanta Review, Caliban, Chicago Review, Cream City Review, Conduit, Hotel Amerika, Phoebe, Poetry East, Quick Fiction, Salt Hill, and 3rd bed, as well as the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader (Black Sparrow Press, 1999 and a poster (broadside) in Mudlark. He also has new work appearing in Agenda (England), Ars-Interpres (Sweden), Forklift, Ohio, House Organ, Le Petit Zine, Mudfish, Pool and Third Coast. DeCarteret's first book, Review--A Book of Poems, which according to Bill Knott was "filled with insight and outrage, monstrosities and miracles," was published by Kettle of Fish Press in 1995. Before that a chapbook, Over Easy (Minotaur, 1990). A second chapbook, The Great Apology, was just published by Oyster River Press for whom I also co-edited the anthology Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets.