speed reading by Mark DeCarteret

not that I clove to you
like a ghostly sheet, love

rolled my tongue into an O
or another self, taut as a clothesline,

some caricature bent to my likeness
or some trucker’s star hitched

half to the wind, half to the little
pill slipped under their tongues



I’ve worked at Water Street Books in Exeter NH nearing 11 years. Stroudwater in Portsmouth NH for 7, Sheafe Street in Portsmouth for 5, and Wordsworth in Cambridge MA for 1, as well as a holiday stint at Boston University.

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