it smote me, and smoked me, and stoked me till the flames rose up inside me, and to tell it truthfully, that’s how I lost the house. When the insurance man arrived to cut a check, who but Love should greet him with their perfect smile, next to my pile of ashes? Love bit me, playfully at first, but then things got aggressive. Love chewed me, shredded me up. Love dunked on me and left me in a parking lot beside a seemingly abandoned RAV-4, then Love hijacked it and mowed me over. There were better days—kissing in back booths, fields of goldenrod, the best times I’ve ever had on drugs, touching and laughing till our eyes popped out of our heads. Love took my eyes out of my head, and I still haven’t gotten them back. Love is all I see now. Love wants it that way, wants me to know it’s out there, to hear it scream, Come and get me! Give it all you’ve got!
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 3.
Clayton Spencer is a poet from southeastern Kentucky. His debut chapbook is Concerning The Service, from Beyond Words Press. His work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Places, Still: The Journal, and elsewhere. Clayton serves as the Youth Literary Arts Outreach Coordinator at the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, KY.
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