A biography is something one invents.
                   —Louis Ferdinand Céline

God knows I’ve used 
what surgical skills I have
to open you up through minor incisions—
larger ones might not have healed,
left you a cripple or a corpse,
and I love you too much for that.

For years, I lived
on a diet of your words, 
letters, diaries, the collected works, 
till they dropped from my mouth like pits 
each time I spoke, and my friends 
could smell you on my breath.

I took the journeys you took, 
walked in your tracks like a Chinese wife; 
asleep, I spoke in your dreams. 
I would have eaten your heart,  
like Snow White’s mother I wanted to turn into you, 
but chaste and tricky, you slipped through your facts.

I came to live in your house, 
restored your pictures, bought back your books, 
discovered the key to your desk, 
moved the yellow chair to the window—
and now you come in, asking 
whose house this is.