Are we there yet? my sister asks. 
Heaven-bound, the Pope assures her. 
When he found her she hovered between earth and heaven. 
Come, my child, he said. Catch a ride with me. 

We’re heaven-bound, Pope Francis says again. 
My sister decides to believe him. 
Come, dear one, he smiles. You’re going my way. 
They fly above the city like a Chagall painting. 

My sister decides to believe him. 
I mean, what does she have to lose? 
They fly above the city like a Chagall painting. 
Soon they’re covered in starlight. 

I mean, what does she have to lose? 
When he found her she hovered, in limbo. 
Look! They’re covered in starlight. 
Are we there yet? my sister asks. 

—From a chapbook-in-progress, forthcoming from MacQ in Spring 2026

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡Making Lemonade: The Sister Pantoums, a quintet of poems in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 28, April 2025)

⚡The Substance of Grief: Introducing the Poetry and the Photography of Alexis Rhone Fancher, eight poems and nine photographs in Calul Journal (14 July 2025)

Alexis Rhone Fancher

is the author of 11 books, most recently Triggered: A Pillow Book (MacQ, 2023), an erotic chapbook collaboration with artist Kenna Barradell and editor Clare MacQueen; BRAZEN, a full-length erotic collection (NYQ Books, 2023); DUETS (Harbor Editions, 2022), an illustrated, ekphrastic chapbook collaboration with poet Cynthia Atkins; and Stiletto Killer (in Italian) from Edizioni Ensemble, Italia (May 2022).

Other books include EROTIC: New & Selected (NYQ Books, 2021); Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018); and three books from KYSO Flash Press: a full-length collection of poems, Enter Here (2017), and The Dead Kid Poems (2019), a companion chapbook to State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (2015).

Rhone Fancher’s poem “when I turned fourteen, my mother’s sister took me to lunch and said:” was chosen by Edward Hirsch for inclusion in The Best American Poetry (2016). Her poems and flash fiction have been published in 200+ literary magazines and journals, including Aeolian Harp, Askew, Cleaver, Diode, Duende, Gargoyle, Glass, Hobart, Nashville Review, Pedestal Magazine, Petrichor, Plume, Poetry East, Rattle, Slipstream, South Florida Poetry Journal (SoFloPoJo), Spillway, SWWIM, The American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, The night heron barks, Tinderbox, Verdad, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

You can find photographs by Alexis on the covers of Witness, Pithead Chapel, Pedestal Magazine, Heyday, and elsewhere, as well as a five-page spread in River Styx. Her street photography is published worldwide.

Since 2013, her writing has been nominated numerous times for the Pushcart Prize, and multiple times for these annual anthology awards: Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net. Her work was selected by final judge Dawn Raffel for Best Microfiction 2025.

Until summer 2023, Alexis and her husband were living and collaborating on the bluffs of San Pedro, California, 25 miles from downtown L.A. They’re now settled in the Mojave Desert a hundred miles east, and they still have a spectacular view.

www.alexisrhonefancher.com

www.alexisrhonefancher.com/audio/