Keeping Things Cold

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

I’ve hung on to what’s left over -

what you touched, what fed you,

taken stock of the refrigerator’s gelid interior,

sought evidence you were here.

Behind the yellow mustard,

and a half-squeezed tube of disappointment,

that Tiger Sauce you loved.

Best Before: Sept. 2007.

Some things I needed to keep.

Today, in the mail, an invitation.

Your Amy is getting married in the fall.

You’ll be gone eleven years.

Who invites the dead fiancé’s mother to her wedding?

She must have weighed the pros and cons as I do,

afraid I’ll put a damper on the day for those who knew you,

and burden those who ask: And how do you know the bride?

Afraid she’ll hurt if I don’t show.

Afraid she’ll hurt if I do.

I search online for the perfect gift,

compose my best excuse.

Tonight, I’ll make French onion soup (your favorite),

globules of butterfat dancing on its surface,

like I would have danced at your wedding.

* * * * *

“Keeping Things Cold” is from The Dead Kid Poems, just published by KYSO FLASH Press. AVAILABLE ON AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Poems-Alexis-Rhone-Fancher/dp/0998037524/; it was first published in Diode (July 2018)

L.A. poet Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Verse Daily, Plume, The 

American Journal of Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Diode, Nashville Review, Wide Awake, Poets of Los 

Angeles, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She’s the author of 5 poetry collections; How I 

Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (2015), Enter 

Here (2017), Junkie Wife (2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (2019). 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. www.alexisrhonefancher.com