works by william pham, 2005-present

index | poetry | fiction

the iron in my song

I will be your innkeeper
if you will be my custom
and I will stretch into the dark
to protect you from the knight
who dreams himself into
a Don Quixote shining
through the grand mythology
of his coarse and bitter hands.

And I will be your merchantman
if you will be my tender
tenderly exchanging words
with the curvature of my ear
telling me all the foreign tales
I could not hear inside of you
and please allow your collarbone
to bring me slowly to your sleep.

My coarse and bitter hands
I could not hear inside of you

copyright (c) 2007 by william pham