works by william pham, 2005-present

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Stone and Wood and Steel

I sweat the shame out from my back;
it creeps out along my vertebrae
and slides across my scapula
sinister, and sticky when it dries
where it lies, when I lie and lie.

A simple lie is a simple thing:
I protect her with the lack of
knowing a thing less simple than
the compliment and what it meant.
It meant more than the sweat on my back.

My arm goes numb underneath her head.
If I flex my bicep, she whispers
into the hollow above my clavicle,
so I flex, and listen, and whisper back
some simple lie, some simple truth.

I learned how to perform and hide
in the house of shouting and hitting
where shouting made the home a simple lie.
I hide now how I once hid child-like,
underneath both blankets and cold sweat.

This is not an uncommon thing.
There is nothing unique about
the house or the home built atop
shouting, hitting, screaming, crying
instead of stone and wood and steel.

But now I am out of the home and back
to the bed where I and she both lie.
A simple lie is a chain in chain-link
armor to protect me with the lack of
knowing a thing less simple than a lie.

There is no shame in the fucking,
only in the sweat and the compliment:

copyright (c) 2007 by william pham