On Giacometti’s Woman with Her Throat Cut by Laura Kasischke

"And, baring her neck, the queen."

ON GIACOMETTI’s Woman with Her Throat Cut

by Laura Kasischke

She sings the song of the angel holding her own 
halo in her hands. Or, girl 
 
on her way to school.
Or lady waiting for a bus. Or 
 
the mother found with her daughter under 
the rubble a couple days after the— 
 
Ballerina on her knees 
in a field. Or 
 
Joan of Arc, in perfumed flames.
Or the stone bride 
in the cemetery, wearing 
a veil of moss 
& lichen. 
And 
the blindfolded child 
bride. And the nurse 
 
who attended to the raped.
And the teacher who shielded the children.
And the vixen who ran into the thorns to lead 
the hunters away from—
 
And the eyes of the virgin 
saint on a plate. And 
the ewe, submitting 
to the shears. And, baring 
her neck, the queen. And 
 
the prostitute strangled in the parking lot. 
And the wives holding hands on the beach, shot.
 
Marilyn Monroe on a sewer grate.
Jane Doe in a drawer at the morgue.
 
Like Bonnie, riding shotgun. Or any 
song ever sung by Amy 
 
Winehouse, who lived & died for us.

This poem will appear in I Was Bonnie & Clyde (Copper Canyon Press, 2026).

This poem is in response to ON GIACOMETTI’s Woman with Her Throat Cut, 1932.

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