Abduction

Afterwards– bedlam

cardinals descending
everywhere,
fate gyrating,

heaven’s inked–
juxtaposing
knees, liturgies

mention nothing
of peculiar quiet,
reddened snows,

trumpeting!
Universal vocabulary’s
whimpering, x’d

yielding—zeros.

*Music by James Rioux

Mark DeCarteret is currently the Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His poems have been published in AGNI, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Salt Hill, and Third Coast, along with many other journals and anthologies. Flap, his fifth book, will be released by Finishing Line Press in May.