Poet of the MonthypNovember 01, 2026Fox Henry Frazier, poetry

Fox Henry Frazier: The Ceremony of Being Named by Another

Poet of the MonthypNovember 01, 2026Fox Henry Frazier, poetry

A Girl Struggles to Articulate Why She Craves the Ceremony of Being Named By Another; But the Only Words that Come to Her Are, The Genius Is Intact—

When I was twenty-three, Lucie gathered us feral

into her home, where she wise-eyed puckish smile

unveiled our reflections from the natural world. Her glass

revealed me: javelina. I smiled then I went home

and cried because I was ugly. Me, I was born arrogant

enough to want to gift the Numinous

a sense of wonder. The kind I felt when I saw an artist’s

rendition of a kinesin protein pulling a vesicle containing

endorphins (I choose to believe they’re endorphins, though

it could hold other cargo) along a microtubule to the axon terminal

where released into the right synaptic space they can embrace

a receiving cell. It looks like a wisp of aurora turned thick

chenille dancing joyously among mitochondria visual hymn

to all that is alive in us. What I felt when I saw

photographs of tears under a microscope onion tears, frost-

jagged foliage, petal-peppered adjacent to veined

topography made by tears of endings & beginnings

of change gauntlet hostile wonders leading to walled

city of laughter, convulsing deluge that will heal

this planet someday by consuming

us dazzling zodiac of selves The wonder I felt

when I met Lucie because at sixteen

I’d dreamed her reclusive sorceress stately in black diamonds

dark ruby Victorian dress billowing cornsilk hair

sprawling estate on a hill in my town where a graveyard lies

she sheltered & blessed & sent me back into the world

a nod, a laugh When you’re older, I’ll see you again

& she did: there I was, seventeen in the humid

Saratoga summer Lucie, white ruffles in June sun

saying, I don’t worry so much anymore hot-cherry-tipped cigarette

smoke rising en vogue asparkle about the misogynists.

Let them eat steak.

Me, sitting on concrete steps, realizing

I couldn’t try to tell her about my dream

I guess I can tell her whatever I want, now

that it’s too late Lucie, I saw you in the dreamworlds

again, last night I was watercolor fox splashing

through wet fuchsia hedges in the west of Ireland

I could smell the sea said, This is my favorite flower

named after the German word for Fox my ancestors

transplanted cultivated called it

Deora Dé: Tears of God What do you make of that?

and Lucie, you laughed Javelina

I think it may mean that you know who you are.

Fox Henry Frazier is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Break Blow Burn (White Stag Publishing, 2026), & the novel Francesca (Y/P, forthcoming 2027). Her essays have appeared in Plume Poetry, Denver Quarterly, & elsewhere. She created & manages Agape Editions & its imprints from her home in the original Twilight Zone of upstate New York.