11/9/11

He's With Me
By Wanda Morrow Clevenger


He's not the most polished
rock in the stream,
rough around the edges
a bad girl's secret dream;

doesn't pretend otherwise
got to commend him for that,
gives as good as he gets
taking it hard to the mat;

won't promise any more
than he can deliver,
his sly, confident smile
brings a lush, quick shiver;

I chose the coal
instead of the jewel,
struck my match into flame
ignited it to hot fuel;

just keep it moving
there's nothing here to see,
except for the obvious
the man's with me.


- - -
Wanda Morrow Clevenger lives in Hettick, IL - population 200, depending upon which way the wind is blowing. Seventy-four pieces of her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry appear in numerous online and print literary journals, magazines, quarterlies, and anthologies. Her first book This Same Small Town in Each of Us, a collection of pre-published this and that including a small selection of first reads, is forthcoming in mid-November.