Snapshots and Lies

By Alexis Rhone Fancher

1.
our bodies are a haven from August.

this summer all we do is rut

mattress on the carpet
him on me

a miasma of scorching discontent.

2.
dingy sheets. the
dryer eats them and my future

gets stuck in the holes.

3.
how did I know he wanted that baby?

4.
at the window,
he smokes Marlboros, taps ashes
on the losers below.

5.
there’s not enough air to go around.

6.
I found a corpse in the kitchen, I tell him.

7.
he flicks his dead daddy’s Zippo
again and again,

surveys the neon-tinged city.

8.
I want to steal something important.

9.
I reach for his pride on the window ledge.
he flicks me away like a gnat.

10.
the tv’s been broken since May.

Finalist, Wherewithal’s Year One Anthology, 2014