Last Night On The Nature Channel We See Each Other For Who We Really Are

by Alexis Rhone Fancher

1. Varanus komodoensis:

Watch the Komodo dragon swallow a monkey in increments,

and tell me you’re unchanged. I dare you.

It feels familiar, but it could be a dream.

The bottom half, floppy, long tail and hind legs all loosie-goosie.

Like me, bandy-legged, woozy after you’ve worked your lingual magic.

Poor monkey! You used to say, only you meant me.

I’ve seen objects disappear inside your mouth, remember?

I get excited just thinking about it.

2. Draco viridi luscus:

I’m trying hard to give you another chance, but that green-eyed dragon

has taught me to expect the worst. Already I’m feeling at loose ends, swallowed up.

You’re on your best behavior until you’re not.

Dusk finds the crows still raucous, flying circles around us.

The old tom yawls a horny duet, his one good eye on the lookout.

* * * * *

"Last Night On The Nature Channel We See Each Other For Who We Really Are" was first published in DUENDE (Spring 2019)

L.A poet Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Poetry East, 

Hobart, VerseDaily, American Journal of Poetry, Duende, Plume, Diode, Wide Awake: 

Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. She’s the author of five published poetry collections, most 

recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash 

Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, publishes in 2020 from New York Quarterly. Her 

photographs are published worldwide, including River Styx, and the covers of Pithead Chapel,

Heyday, and Witness. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry 

editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com