Anne Marie Rooney won the 2009 Iowa Review Award for Poetry and the 2010 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2008, and her poem “After It” won Second Place in Narrative’s First Annual Poetry Contest. Born and raised in New York City, Rooney completed her MFA at Cornell, where she is a lecturer of English.

When He Left: Index of First Lines

by Anne Marie Rooney

A heal is a cut made before birth
A month later I became a dim blue road
A tooth cracking against my tongue
And an orange opens against my teeth
Are women like this? Cherished and unkind
Because that year I was never alone
Cigarette sweating against the open window
Don’t you know how much I asked for?

People on couch
To continue reading please sign in.
Join for free
Already a reader? Sign In