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
Stunning is right. Whoa!
ReplyDeletePoignant and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThis is the poem that made me buy the book, which is due to arrive any day now. Can't wait!
ReplyDelete