by Alexis Rhone Fancher
All in by Alexis Rhone Fancher
by Alexis Rhone Fancher
You Ferrari baby. You Lotus Elan. You dream man. Smooth moves, always some sleek bitch on your arm, and me side-kickin’, just afterthought. So I shoot you, replicate you in oversized prints spread out on my be d like facsimile. Those blown-up biceps, fine-tuned torso, face up on my pillow, your perfect pores. How the camera loves you, baby, those smoldering, Billy Dee shots aimed straight at a woman’s vulnerability. How you juice them, seduce them, your voice dropping an octave when a woman calls. And you get all Barry White. You’ve kept up the upkeep. Changed the oil. Sleek. Toned. You Alfa and Romeo, baby. You candy apple. You metal fleck. The wind buffs glitter all around you. That night at my studio after one too many Hennessy, we stand toe to toe, and I turn my lips to yours, ask, why not me? You grab my ass with two hands, squeeze, and shrug. Baby got no back. And I flash to that chorus line of sloe-eyed beauties you’ve bedded, each one bottom-heavy, riper than I could ever be. As if derrière were the measure of a woman. Let’s get back to work, you say. You rev up your engine. I flick on the lights. Oh, baby, you shimmer, you gleam. Stand up, I tell you. Pull the shirt above your head. Now you can’t see me for real. You, who can’t see the Beemers for the beaters. You, who wouldn’t know love if it bit you on the ass.
*This poem was a Finalist in the SWWIM For-the-Fun-of-It Contest.
Photo Credit: Photo of C.W. by Alexis Rhone Fancher, 2016
________________________________________________________________
Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Poetry East, Hobart, VerseDaily, American Journal of Poetry, Duende, SWWIM, Plume, Diode, PedestalMagazine, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. She’s authored five published poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in early 2021. Her photographs are published worldwide, including River Styx, and the covers of Pithead Chapel, Heyday and Witness. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com
by Alexis Rhone Fancher
“I’m returning in three days. Don’t wash.”
—From a love letter Napoleon sent to Josephine
I touch myself so I can savvy what you rut in. Bring my fingers to my mouth, imagine you in our bed, returned from the three-day fray, redolent of the weight of the world, and me, your dirty, dirty girl, naked, eager, as you make your way down, breathing in my hair, my lips, the sweet spot where neck meets collarbone. I’ve made a religion of your fantasies, a science of what you desire. That ferine moan, my always startled gasp at first thrust. I angle, cocked hips, a bit askew, arched for maximum penetration. Our bed is a rocket launch, a bacchanal, a pelican’s steep dive into the sea. For Michael, my first love, I used the freshening wipe before I arrived, so as not to offend. I spread myself wide on his bed, confident, watching the top of his head (black curls) as he explored me — that fear of not being Summer’s Eve™ fresh, worried my pussy might disenchant, the musk of me — all wiped away. He raised his head. Next time, Michael said, don’t wash.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, SWWIM, Poetry East, Pedestal Magazine, and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). Her sixth collection, EROTIC: New & Selected, publishes in 2020 from New York Quarterly. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. See more at www.alexisrhonefancher.com.
by Alexis Rhone Fancher
Baby, you were a tiger last night,
the famous poet growls,
paws at my breast like an apology.
He knows I like it rough.
I know his penchant for variety,
his lust’s juvenescence.
I saw his arm
slip around her flirtation,
saw him meet her platinum gaze,
maneuver her out on the deck,
grope her like he once groped me.
When we make our make-up love,
I picture impossibly young women,
lined up, his for the taking,
and I hear my time running out,
that desperate, loudening thrum.
I’m his blond, his punch-drunk muse.
He knows I’ll go down swinging.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, SWWIM Every Day, The MacGuffin, Nasty Women Poets, Nashville Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Her books include: How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen…, State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, Enter Here, Junkie Wife, and The Dead Kid Poems. Her photographs are published worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. Please see more at www.alexisrhonefancher.com.
by Alexis Rhone Fancher
he’ll ask if you’re the same girl who used to live on Clinton St, and weren’t your sons
once friends? Old, with bushy brows and a scraggly beard, he’ll be even more repellant.
You’ll recall his fusty smell, how he’d push his way into your apartment,
sit too close to you on your couch, uninvited, stroke your hair.
He’ll ask if you remember the handmade books he tried to sell you
scribbled drawings, pages of ramblings disguised as poems, ink-splotched, unintelligible,
glitter escaping from the gaping pages onto your apartment’s grey shag confusion;
how he almost coerced you into buying one, you, who could barely make rent,
who could barely afford cheap, Payless shoes for your growing boy.
Did I come on to you back then? he’ll ask, gripping your arm so you can’t escape.
He’ll feign foggy, confused. When you answer yes, he’ll smile, and say,
Yeah, well. In those days, I came on to everyone.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________