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This website includes my (growing) collection of poems published on Medium, Substack, and elsewhere, starting from the day my mother died, November 1, 2023, to the present.
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For a complete listing of links to my poems and other cool stuff:
Wild Chocolate
It’s 95% cacao, sweet as the inside of a sweaty sneaker. It’s a rubber tire rolling through my mouth after wheelies in the mud. It’s...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 26, 20241 min read
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Separate Lives
We grew up with the stifling rules, the anger, and the dread. You found friends to be the family missing from our home. I withdrew and...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 25, 20241 min read
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No Proof
I don’t have a picture of my parents kissing. I can’t hold their romance in my hands. Still, I believe they were in love once. When I was...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 24, 20241 min read
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Lost Things
I lost my memory when she died. I couldn’t recognize things she owned, knew no history, felt no tenderness for treasures to be cleared...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 24, 20241 min read
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Blown Away
We divided what was left of him, and then divided that. He was tossed to ocean and to mountains by the trails as if we needed him to sail...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 22, 20241 min read
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Honesty Didn’t Kill Me
I learned to speak in circles, twirl in skirts of red deceit. Truth never bit me on the tongue. I’d rather shut my body off, a leaky...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 21, 20241 min read
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Bruised Oranges
At the end, orange for you was a color. Orange for me was a fruit. We shared a common language but didn't understand the words. At the...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 20, 20241 min read
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A Changed Woman
My friend is a changed woman since the accident. When I visit every day she doesn’t interrupt or sass or get distracted by the men who...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 19, 20241 min read
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Listen to Your Mother
I see that you are blushing, you have a diamond ring. Before you choose your wedding dress, examine what attracts you to the man you plan...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 18, 20241 min read
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Don’t Think I Can Make It
Sinkholes eat people for lunch. Tornadoes swirl in February. My husband went for ice cream, and I haven’t seen him in ten years. My...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 17, 20241 min read
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Blame
Don’t be quick to blame and shame for what you don’t see written. Adam was with Eve when tempted in the Garden. Perhaps he was distracted...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 17, 20241 min read
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The Which and the Why
All my life I heard it said, support yourself, don’t rely on someone else to ease your way, smooth out your woes. And so I worked, made...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 17, 20241 min read
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This Old Desk
This old desk is filled with useless wonders. One drawer full of locks with no keys, combination locks with no numbers, a keyring with...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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Watering Flowers in the Rain
Why I water flowers in the downpour, in my housecoat, is the question all the gossips in the building want to answer. Why I wear sad...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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My Eyes
I don’t see you as you are, frail, anguished, dying. I see you lost in Schubert as your fingers dance on piano keys. I see your face, so...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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The Day After My Purchase
The day after my purchase the patio table explodes a loose bolt. I watch it roll free over uneven pavers to hide under planters too heavy...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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Her Portrait
Her portrait watches neighbors shuffle in, wondering who she was, and maybe find a deal. She hears them whisper once she was a beauty,...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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Beach Sand
You, the summer sunset glistening on wet skin. A patina of sand and goosebumps my fingers touched on purpose. Me, awkward in your too-big...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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Café
Tucked into a breath between a barbershop and newsstand, a wedge of calm unfazed by scissor snips and prying eyes, this café is refuge to...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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You Went to Paris
You went to Paris and all I got was this lousy postcard. Signed with French kisses. You know I can’t read French. You went to Africa and...
Nolcha Fox
Feb 16, 20241 min read
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