Alexis Rhone Fancher

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French Onion Soup


The onion soup has been simmering on the stove for hours. Your favorite.
You liked the way the onions cooked down, translucent in their buttery pot.
Stirring, inhaling, your face, awash in pleasure. It’s how I remember you,
a snapshot in my head. Young. Strong. Handsome.

When the onions are soft, glistening, I add the bone broth, yet another layer
of flavor, and a bay leaf for fragrance, a pinch of salt. Two hours later, I give the
soup a final stir. Ladle it into bowls, top with a slice of toasted French bread,
covered in melted gruyere.

I’m rewarded by your smile. So wonderful to see you happy, again. I reach
to hug, to breathe you in. Then logic says it’s not possible, there are no re-dos;
the first shot is the last. Unlike the ball game you loved to play most,
there are no free throws.

Yesterday I drove around our old neighborhood, looking for you. Crazy, right? I
searched the corner market, dropped in at the Starbucks you used to love. I drove
for an hour. Kept an eye out. Like I could spot you, walking down our street.
I’d scoop you up and retrace our steps, only this time, you don’t die.

Mojave Melody

With you gone, the house is shrouded in silence. The desert sand muffles sound. It’s so quiet I
hear the refrigerator humming. The hot tub in the back switches on and off in 2-part harmony.
The coyotes howl each nighttime, as the quiet overcomes the dark, makes it tremble. I’ve been
here two years, the days slipping by, almost unnoticed. Now, the pre-set dishwasher chimes in,
its slosh-toss percussion adds a beat. The washing machine on the service porch starts itself.
Soon the rinse cycle joins in. Outside, I hear the cheery beep beep beep of the Amazon delivery
truck. A cacophony, punctuated by the deliveryman ringing the front doorbell on repeat, just to
make sure I hear it. It’s the only human contact I have.

I tell myself I’m accustomed to the silence, that it feeds my writing, that I cherish it. Better that
than the panic I sometimes feel without you as darkness descends, makes me vulnerable and
easily spooked. A target. A sitting duck.

Poem For The Man Who Loves Women

Tommy says he’s a “cleavage man.” Says he wants me to send him photos of my
breasts. I consider it. I think I want to please him. When he lies and says he loves
my poems, that he reads all my books on repeat, I want to please him even more.
He asks me to write a poem, just for him, one that revels in my body parts, stops
short at my perfectly symmetrical breasts. Maybe he was weaned too early.
Maybe, he let his fingers brush his mother’s breasts as he walked past, daring a
fleeting caress. He knew if he grabbed one the way he wanted, stuffed it into his mouth,
he would be rebuffed, told he was too old for that sort of nonsense. Once, after phone
sex, Tommy confessed he dreamed of breasts with nipples like pink rosebuds, soft
and yielding. Those oh so responsive areoles, like mine. But how could he know? A
man who loves women can get away with almost anything.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Verse Daily, The American Journal of Poetry, Plume, Diode, Slipstream, and elsewhere. She’s authored eleven poetry collections, most recently EROTIC: New & Selected (2021, NYQ Books), and DUETS (2022, Small Harbor Press), an ekphrastic chapbook written with Virginia poet, Cynthia Atkins. BRAZEN, an erotic, full-length collection, the follow up to EROTIC, published in 2023, again from NYQ. TRIGGERED, a “pillow book,” was published by MacQueen’s in 2023. Coming up: A photo-portrait book of over 100 Southern California poets will be published in early 2026 by Moon Tide Press. And SinkHole, a chapbook of twenty-five of the “sister” pantoums will be published by MacQueen’s Press in January, 2026. A multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, Alexis recently won
BestMicroFiction 2025. Find her at  www.alexisrhonefancher.com

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