A BIOGRAPHY, IN PIECES
ANNE QUARANTO
i. About the author
The poet’s eyes are lovely and diseased
with hunger for another self,
hunger for one she cannot have.
I. What does she think of being old?
As her life wears on,
she finds she has to
close her eyes more and
more often.
II. What does she do at coffee shops?
When the song ends
all she hears with her hand pressed to her cheek
is her watch.
III. Does she get lonely?
When she walks home at night
she cannot tell if others on the street
walk towards her or away,
yet she is hopeful.
IV. Is she lacking in patience?
She takes her watch off
to stop remembering
but keeps looking at her wrist,
waiting for her loneliness to end.
V. How would one know her on the street?
Her lipstick leaves bright red tags
on her cups of tea and cigarette butts
and on her lovers’ necks when in her dreams
they love her and are hers.
VI. What does she do?
She bleeds all day
and then at night
when bloodless
cries.
VII. And in her free time?
Comes home from work at nine
and is alone
with her thoughts,
as they say.
VIII. What part of the paper does she read?
Frustrated by the unerring beating of her heart,
young woman, 23,
kills herself methodically
in search of obedience from her body.
IX. Does she believe?
At night and on her knees
she crosses herself
with closing eyes,
then sleeps uneasily.
X. How does she sin?
Sometimes she lets herself think that
everything she’s ever known
is just herself, endlessly repeated
by carnival mirrors.
XI. How will she die?
The smell of cigarettes, his smell,
is on her hands,
and she fears she will become him
or already has.
XII. What does she do when she can’t sleep?
Early the next morning
the wind comes off the lake
and in her ears
and scrubs her clean of all her trespasses.
