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      March 17, 2014Over ItAlexis Rhone Fancher

      Now the splinter-sized dagger that jabs at my heart has
      lodged itself in my aorta, I can’t worry it
      anymore. I liked the pain, the
      dig of remembering, the way, if I
      moved the dagger just so, I could
      see his face, jiggle the hilt and hear his voice
      clearly, a kind of music played on my bones
      and memory, complete with the hip-hop beat
      of his defunct heart. Now what am I
      supposed to do? I am dis-
      inclined toward rehab. Prefer the steady
      jab jab jab that reminds me I’m still
      living. Two weeks after he died,
      a friend asked if I was “over it.”
      As if my son’s death was something to get
      through, like the flu. Now it’s past
      the five-year slot. Maybe I’m okay that he isn’t anymore,
      maybe not. These days,
      I am an open wound. Cry easily.
      Need an arm to lean on. You know what I want?
      I want to ask my friend how her only daughter
      is doing. And for one moment, I want her to tell me she’s
      dead so I can ask my friend if she’s over it yet.
      I really want to know.

      from #41 - Fall 2013

      Alexis Rhone Fancher

      “‘My mom and I divorced my dad,’ I overheard my four-year-old say. It knocked the wind right out of me. I got it, that it was the two of us against the world, a single mom and an only child. For a long time, we were thriving, invincible. And then, we weren’t. Joshua Dorian Rhone was diagnosed with epitheliod sarcoma, a rare type, in 2004, and died in 2007. He was 26 years old. ‘Over It’ is one of a series of poems written in his memory, attempting to make something positive from my grief.”

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