HOUSEKEEPING

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


Ashes to ashes dust to Swiffer.

I love you like a cat loves an ankle,
rubbed up against, territorial.

I love you like the Swiffer loves
the dust, deeply, with
an electrostatic charge.

When you’re gone
I shout your name.
I match your socks.
I scrub the kitchen sink.

Am I not your beloved?

Hidden in a heap of laundry,
I touch myself,
come on your warm, white
sheets.

If you see a trail of glistening
girl sparkling across your coverlet,
know it as a road map to me.


* * * * *

"Housekeeping" was first published in Loch Raven Review, 2015.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, Duende, Pirene’s Fountain, Poetry East, Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. She’s authored five poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another, full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in 2021. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com