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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.
For a complete listing of links to my poems and other cool stuff:
Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Nothing Promised
Nothing is promised, except maybe death. Death was a promise you didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to hear it for you. I wrote you down...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
I Should Have Been in My 60s in High School
I never belonged to the life that I lived. I never believed I could be what I should. Awkward and quiet, too sweet to beat up, I was a...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Pretenders
Let’s pretend happiness in matching turquoise and white mother/daughter dresses, while he snarled, “Smile, dammit!” behind the camera....
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Silence
Silence is a sine wave, a rocking chair swaying empty on the porch, the bottom layer of a chocolate cake, a lurker peering through the...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
If You Can Stand the Cold, Look Up
December nights rain falling stars. Wind throws silver glitter snow. We spin below, the earth a whirligig that tilts and sends us off to...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
New Year’s Resolutions I’m Sure to Break
I will catch butterflies instead of colds. I will travel in a train, not in my imagination. I will lose weight instead of my mind. I will...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Too Close
My body shoved me through the bathroom door from girl to grown-up. That leg hair had to disappear, I was no shaggy dog. I thought I’d...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
What Happened to Grandma
The filigree hands of Grandma’s watch stopped decades ago, when she died. I hang from the minute hand pointing to 9. I’m 9 years old,...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
What We Are Made Of
In the bedroom, we are made of pain. Pain of birth. Pain of death. Pain of getting out of bed with bad backs, messy hair, creaky knees,...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
It Happens in the Wild
You must have paid your owner off, a tidy sum, to be released from servitude. You ate and grew to thrice your size. You gobbled...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Trip and Slip
I trip on the rug and slip into the future. Into water. I wave for help. You smile and take a picture. A wave dumps me onto a pile of...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Cleaning House
While he goes to the bakery for cinnamon rolls, she declutters the kitchen, one cabinet at a time. Memories spill out of the first...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Time Knows How to Deceive
Forget Father Time. Time is a woman. Her latest cosmetic surgery heals just in time for her to step into the new year with pucker-up lips...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
Courtship
He loves me from a distance, whispers in my dreams. He is the sky, breathing a breeze of decomposed leaves. Come into my arms. He is the...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 12, 20241 min read
According to the Dog
I adore you every hour that I’m not asleep. You are my crush when you dish out the food that I must eat. You’re my delight when you...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 11, 20241 min read
Burden
I tossed regrets and failures into a flowing steam, They weighed too heavy on my back, and brought me too much grief. I must take care to...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 11, 20241 min read
I’m From
I’m from a Marine base built on the backs of billions of bugs, stewed in humidity and heat. We drove in front of a hurricane to leave...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 11, 20241 min read
Washing My Hair
My hair tendrils wrap around escaped words and absent smiles. They collect door mats and goodbyes. I wash the mess out every morning in...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 11, 20241 min read
Breaking News
The news broke, scattered shards of words. Reporters rushed to brush them up with a broom and dustpan, each one with different words,...
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Nolcha Fox
Feb 11, 20241 min read
Inexplicable
You are a danger sign, a windy mountain road with no guard rail. You are unprotected sex with a stranger. You are the stranger. You are...
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