Mark DeCarteret

NITPICKING

I got stiffed w/the plastic utensils
a glare almost migraine-inducing

the conversation had filtered from pedigrees to pelts
some flimsy hypothesis lip-synched into a bottle

the sky's now kept down by one bolt
all bloated from your rain-deformed decorum  

here where a gar slits the water into two lobes
that ancient craft of being only half-conscious

I picture the dog as an x-ray again
my wedding band arranged on its organs

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.