“SWEET TOOTH”

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


The man in the window is cheesecake;
if I could soar across Main St.
and land in his arms, I’d eat him for dessert.

He’s caramel poured in those low-slung jeans,
a Sugar Daddy™ (‘lasts forever if you lick it right’).

He’s marzipan, clean-cut, the jut of his hipbone
reflecting the sun. I’m come undone

by the clockwork of his days,
his devil’s food dismount from that Shimano aluminum bike,
how he disappears inside the foyer.

If he were mine,
I’d ride him like a stolen bicycle.

He strips down to sweetmeat, Monday through Friday, 5 p.m.
“Happy Hour,” when

he hangs the bike on the wall.
And me, happy to watch his muscles ripple.

He stretches out on the bed, my creature of habit,
his O’Henry™ straining against its wrapper.

This I know:
He’s an all-day sucker.
He doesn’t believe in drapes.

* * * * *

"Sweet Tooth" was first published in PLUME, 2018. Text and photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher. 

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), The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019), and EROTIC: New & Selected (New York Quarterly Books, 2021). Another, full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, was published in 2021. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Daily. www.alexisrhonefancher.com