Stroke
Leo tries to tell us
he's feeling green
when what he really
means is he's cold
then talks of breaking
forty on a cratered
beach in Normandy
his harmony of senses
stunned into something
like sunlight or liquid
his most popular stunts
replaced by macramé
fighting pegs into holes
a therapist coaching him
sounding overblown
rehearsed as if vowels
came five to a jar
all deep sigh and burst
until I'm told she is deaf
and this seems like all
the explanation that is
needed so I'll turn to a small
dose of egrets in the slow
to develop backyard
and the alligator appearing
all elastic snap and sinew
this gurgle of air then white wing
a cacophony startling
long dormant instincts
this most legible dispatch
we make out above the ditch
mangled into some code
of reddish clay and bone.
Memo: Adam and Eve
For My voice
you will sniff—
cherished bob of fruit
like a miniature wish—
then take most of time
to stretch into significance
a tale all technique
in My absence;
your tongue which once provoked
angels, gave atoms fits
now settles for wind,
pinned grass and statistic—
their own take on perfection.
What waste these mechanics!
You're aghast or even worst
wired shut with heaven in your midst—
another lunging for metaphor,
be it worshipful hiss
or the shudder and plumes
of some wisdom just missed.
Mark DeCarteret's work has appeared in the anthologies American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon Press, 2000) and Thus Spake the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader 1988-1998 (Black Sparrow Press, 2000). His latest chapbook The Great Apology was published a few years back by Oyster River Press for which he also co-edited the anthology Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poet.
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