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.