decoys


it’s the animal’s way of saying
you’re welcome or lookee right here
at these worms made of sticks
& these deer made of sticks too

unlike when their words came in bunches
dropped like babies on the new snow
or were arranged in the sky like some
cherub w/the chubbiest of cheeks

now this one here’s lit from within
while those others are bowed
their hair blown by some engine
or are each of their heads now a hat?

& next come the boats again
bringing w/them that new day
when our throats will be blest w/more vowels
& we’ll sic the best of our gods on them again

Mark DeCarteret’s work has appeared in the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press), Places of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry (Story Line Press), Thus Spake the Corpse:  An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press) and Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets (Oyster River Press) which he also co-edited.  A chapbook (If This Is the) New World was released last year from March Street Press.