Poetry 22: Mark Doty

Mark Doty is another poet I discovered in my workshop. What I've included here is less than half of it, so trot on over here and read the whole thing. It gets better and better.

(Yes, I know--my "rules" about what to copy here and what not to have become sort of gelatinous. Sorry.)

A Display of Mackerel
by Mark Doty

They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,
which divide the scales’
radiant sections

like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other
—nothing about them
of individuality. . . .

.