When I asked him to turn me on he said:

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

1. Turn yourself on.

His voice had that flat affect lovers get

when they’re done with you.

2. You’re burning through men, my mother warned.

Like there was a limit.

Every day, a fresh opportunity

to ruin some poor man's life.

I was on fire.

3. I’d take a bullet for you, he told me once.

And meant it.

I didn’t answer.

I tasted loneliness at last.

4. And he, behind me,

palms on my ass, riding.

5. (That night) I fell asleep with the TV remote

between my legs.

When I awoke, he was gone.

6. If he knew what I would write about him,

he’d have hated me sooner.

7. Sometimes, the person you’d take a bullet for

is the one behind the gun.

* * * * *

Author's Note: "for Michael Cohen"

"When I asked him to turn me on he said:" was first published in The American Journal of Poetry (2017)

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, 

Rattle, Literary Mama, Diode, Pirene’s Fountain, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. 

She’s the author of four poetry collections; How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and 

other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here, (2017), 

and Junkie Wife, (2018). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com