Vox Populi
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Alexis Rhone Fancher: Out of Order
Promise me, my sister says. That you’ll be there if something happens to me. I know she worries about the fate of her children if she becomes injured, succumbs to a virus or is killed in a crash. Anything’s possible, she says. For better or worse, her sperm donor’s out of the picture. Like me, she’s chosen badly, and now is raising both kids alone. I married a gangster. Birthed a son. Like my sister, I’m on my own. My ex left me for a man, ended up in prison on gun charges. Attempted murder. Not getting out any time soon.
As I looked at it, having only one child while my sister had two was a blessing. Half as much work and expense. Half the grief if one dies. God forbid! As my grandma Rose used to say; It’s unnatural for a mother to outlive her children, after one of her two children preceeded her in death. Uncle Kenny in his mid-forties, felled by a heart attack while in bed with somebody not his wife. And then my mother’s fatal cancer diagnosis at fifty-three. My grandmother willed herself to die, accomplished it before my mother could succumb. I understand. The out of order-ness of it. Her devastation, now that my son has died before me.
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Poet/photographer Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Plume, Diode,The Pedestal Magazine, Duende, Vox Populi, Gargoyle, lysium Review, and elsewhere. Her photos are published worldwide. She’s authored ten poetry ollections, most recently, TRIGGERED, (MacQueens) and BRAZEN. (NYQ). A coffee table book of over 100 of Alexis’ photographs of Southern California poets will be published by Moon Tide Press in early 2025. She calls the Mojave Desert home.
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Poem and image copyright 2025 Alexis Rhone Fancher
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So moving!
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Yes, it is. Alexa’s poems are brave in their embracing of difficult emotions.
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Yes, this touches on a basic fear in most mothers, I think: to bury a child, no matter the age. It IS out of order for us today, even though, not so long ago, some children’s deaths were the norm. Mothers almost expected it. My grandmother had 12 children of which seven lived and became my father, my aunts, my uncles. Only one of my cousins died at 25 from a tumour they operated successfully in me, years later. The irony of it all and the heartache.
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I know many people who have lost their grown sons to the opioid epidemic in recent years. There is no agony comparable.
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My mom buried two sons; my older brother, John, was murdered in 1980 and my younger brother, Mark, committed suicide in 1984. And I was recently diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which marched from my throat like a band of barbarians, their black banner horridly familiar. This puts my sister and I in an impossible position. Neither of us want my mom to live to bury her third and final son, but does that mean we hope for her early demise? Such is the gist of the poem, which articulates this paradox not perfectly, never that, but beautifully, which is often, of course — like gratitude itself — enough.
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I send you love, Matthew.
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Matt, I think you are amazing. Having experienced more than your share of tragedy and hardship, you are still a good man, full of love and hope.
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Thanks. Although not perfect, never that, the best of us do our best, which is, thankfully, more than enough.
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The hand touching towards the “window” in Fancher’s photo, ah. The shadow of the word Temp floating on the scene.
The poem shakes me. My mother lost her first child before I was born. Negligent homicide. It set the tone for her entire life, including her over-protectiveness of me. But it was not until she neared death that she expressed her deep enduring grief in an exorcism by dance. Can there be an exorcism of such a disorder-to-life by poem?
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Thanks for sharing this, Jim.
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This is Alexis Rhone Fancher at her very best — thank you for publishing this, Michael, and for the poignant photograph also by Alexis, bravo!
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. I love Alexis’s poems and photos too. She’s a regular contributor to VP, as you probably remember
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We don’t get over things, do we? Loss, grief, becomes part of our cells. Little candles burning there.
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Grief becomes part of our cells. Exactly.
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such a strong and moving narrative. I’m not sure if you make corrections, but the word used in this poem should be “preceded” and not proceeded at least it seems in context. (Carla)
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