I prefer pussy, as in cat
as in willow
as in chases a rat
as in raised on a pillow.

I prefer pussy, as in riot
as in foots
as in pussycat doll
as in puss-in-boots

I prefer pussy, as a twat
it is not, nor
is it a beaver,
a clam or a cleaver.

I prefer pussy to
nookie or gash,
it isn’t a box,
or a cave or a slash.

I prefer pussy to snapper
or snatch, far better
than taco or
slit or man-catch.

I prefer pussy, ’though
rosebud’s not bad,
and muffin sounds homey,
and cooch makes me glad.

I prefer pussy, as in whip
as in flower,
as into it you slip—
as in I have the power.

Alexis Rhone Fancher

is the author of How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen and Other Heart Stab Poems (Sybaritic Press, 2014); and State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (KYSO Flash Press, 2015), which won an Honorable Mention for Poetry in the 2015 Los Angeles Book Festival awards.

Her work appears in Menacing Hedge, Ragazine, Rattle, The MacGuffin, Slipstream, Fjords Review, H_NGM_N, great weather for MEDIA, Chiron Review, and elsewhere. Her poems are published in over 25 American and international anthologies. Her photos are published worldwide. Since 2013, Alexis has been nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes and four Best of the Net awards.

She served as photography editor of Fine Linen Literary Journal until its closure, and is currently poetry editor of Cultural Weekly, where she publishes The Poet’s Eye, a monthly photo essay about her ongoing love affair with Los Angeles.

www.alexisrhonefancher.com

www.alexisrhonefancher.com/audio/

alexis [at] lapoetrix [dot] com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Saturday Poetry Series Presents: State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies by Sivan Butler-Rotholz in As It Ought to Be (23 January 2016)

⚡ No Holding Back: An Interview with Alexis Rhone Fancher by George Wallace in great weather for MEDIA (29 October 2015):

“That I’ve shared my history gives people permission to share theirs. That’s what I like best about what I do; sometimes a poet can give you a safe space to own yourself.”

⚡ Interview with Poet Alexis Rhone Fancher by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson in Gyroscope Review (29 January 2016)

⚡ How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen: and other heart-stab poems, reviewed by Dan Cuddy in The Lock Raven Review (Volume 11, No. 2, 2015)

⚡ The Poet Reads Three Poems, text and audio in Menacing Hedge (Winter 2015); includes the prose poem “Tonight I Dream of My Last Meal with My First Ex-Husband Who Was Both Fickle and Bent”

⚡ Six Fancher Poems, which Steve Kowit, former Poetry Editor of Serving House Journal, had chosen for the spring 2015 issue before he passed away in April; all six poems plus poet’s commentaries appear in the SHJ memorial issue.