my robot – Mark DeCarteret

got caught

on a not so

hidden camera

his eyes these 

two dots &

his surface 

so white it

fought off any light

his sound bit-

ten off as he

tried telling them

how he’d gotten  

the notebook

so he could

jot down all

he thought were

his own thoughts

but were now

virtually 

nothing worth

noting lots of 

zeros & ones

our hero now

re-dotting his eyes

his surface so

white he could be

spotted from

atop the clouds

what had pass

worded off

for an identity–

all he’d been taught

about being an “I”

bought into ever-

y thing they

were selling



Mark DeCarteret has been working at Water Street Books in Exeter NH for 10 years. Worked at Stroudwater Books in Portsmouth for 7. And Wordsworth in Cambridge MA for 1. He’s also worked at the Emerson College Library in Boston and volunteered at Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham NH. His poetry has appeared in 450 reviews, 25 anthologies and 7 books.

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