Because your eyes were blue as curaçao
and your table manners, impeccable
Because inside your head I was smooth
as Michelangelo’s Aurora.
Because the night was in cahoots with the street lamps
and La Dolce Vita was an amusement ride
Because the light was saffron yellow in October
and the purple irises were not in bloom
Because I was drunk on vodka sauce
Because I was drunk on you
Because the gnocchi at Dan Tana’s were to die for
Because you swore to die
before you’d lie to me
But I sucked you off
under the table anyway
And the moon hid behind my skirt
and we shared cannoli for dessert
And you didn’t know:
ricotta sat cool on my tongue
and the Campari tasted as bitter as love.
—Poem is from the author’s forthcoming chapbook Junkie Wife and
was first published in Public Pool; appears here with author’s
permission.
is the author of
How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and other heart-stab poems
(Sybaritic Press, 2014), and two books published by KYSO Flash Press:
State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (2015), and
Enter Here
(May 2017), a full-length collection of photographs and erotic poems.
Her writing has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of
the Net, and appears in more than 100 literary magazines, journals, and anthologies,
including The Best American Poetry 2016, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and
Beyond, Rattle, The MacGuffin, Slipstream, Hobart, Cleaver Magazine, Poetry East,
Fjords Review, Rust + Moth, Pirene’s Fountain, Askew and KYSO
Flash.
Her photographs have been published worldwide, including spreads in River Styx,
Heart Online, and Rogue Agent, and on the covers of Heyday Magazine,
Chiron Review, Witness, The Mas Tequila Review, and the KYSO Flash Anthology
2015.
A lifelong Angeleno, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly, where she
also publishes a monthly photo-essay, “The Poet’s Eye,” about her
on-going love affair with Los Angeles. From the S-curves of Topanga and the sprawling
beaches of the Westside, to the stunning views of downtown L.A. from her 8th-floor loft
studio, her beloved city can be construed as another character in her work.
www.alexisrhonefancher.com
www.alexisrhonefancher.com/audio/
alexis [at] lapoetrix [dot] com
