Monday 3 July 2017

THE NARCISSIST’S CONFESSION

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


Before I was your wife I
was a narcissist.
Before that I was a dyke.  

Before you I loved an artist. Big
cock. No ambition. I wanted him
to change. His cock shrank.  

I poured sugar in his gas tank
to teach him a lesson.    

What civilized person  
acts like that?  

Before I was your wife I loved a  
woman. After sex
her scent lingered 
on my upper lip. 
Eau de Desperation.

But you, baby
smell like success, old
east-coast money,
Episcopalian bebop, those
blue eyes focused Godward when
you come.

It took me forever,
stepping on them to get to
you. Sometimes
I wonder how
I managed to climb
over all those
bodies.


* * * * *

©-Alexis Rhone Fancher
"The Narcissist's Confession" was first published in Poeticdiversity, 2014.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is the author of How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen and other 
heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), and Enter Here (2017). 
She is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Slipstream, Hobart, Cleaver, The 
MacGuffin, Poetry East, Plume, Glass, and elsewhere. Her photographs are published 
worldwide, including the cover of Witness, Heyday, and Nerve Cowboy, and a spread in River 
Styx. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural 
Weekly. She lives in Los Angeles. Find out more at: www.alexisrhonefancher.com. 




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