Mark DeCarteret

Cat's Hole | Night Light

Cat's Hole

where the river ran backwards,
where our hands and feet bled
but mostly our feet,
where frogs plied their holes
and we floated like fanatics
having emptied ourselves of songs,
Cat's Hole where they dived for more bodies,
where the stars smoked and other teenagers
tortured our likenesses,
Cat's Hole where the sun looked
to doctor its oft-punished face —
may its memory provide for us,
may it continue to sample our grief.
Cat's Hole where those backseats engulfed us,
where our fathers held our heads down
and we drank from the darkest of broths,
where trees doubled over
and bullies trained,
Cat's Hole where prophets bawled
like new deer on the shore,
where we broke in synthetics
and even time licked its lips —
may it thwart the unwarranted horror,
may it decline the deceit that seats eight.
Cat's Hole where we slapped at our shadows,
where we worked the day over
and then leaked into the depths,
where we breathed into spaces left by dead stars
and our radios failed us,
Cat's Hole where the Indians
couldn't make out their faces,
where something ate at our flesh
and we blessed it,
where the beaver was reduced to a swirl —
may we measure the extent of our ugliness,
may it ward off the one of many tests.
Cat's Hole where we sampled more powders
and adorned ourselves alike,
where we foresaw one button for play
and another for the self to be helped,
Cat's Hole where our mothers tried
fixing our names to the twilight,
where we put off the ordeal
of making supper so we could take
to the world with our teeth.

Night Light

More this mock-up of sun
that looks like a lozenge half sucked
and then stuck to a magazine
rather than that fiery reckoning
once dreamed up by gods.
I'm so careful with the door
my heart thinks me a criminal —
morphing into this wrung thing
after having morsecoded me
its bloodied uncertainty.
The crows have sprung off
leaving nothing of themselves
on the snow's glassy surface —
the burnt pieces of toast in their beaks
like these large swollen tongues.
My hands deliberate on their own,
each movement accompanied
by the tick of a picture book's clock.
Better this than me telling you
I'm having difficulty breathing
with what's white reassuring me
there's little need for my presence.
And how tonight we will turn in
all at once and then toss off in unison
the thickest of blankets from our beds
as those ghosts we tried speaking for
sit in on our dreams once again.

Poet's Biography:

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 several years back by Oyster River Press for which he also co-edited the anthology Under the Legislature of Stars: 62 New Hampshire Poets.