Adam Fieled (Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania): Something Solid: Aughts Philly: "Side-Armed"

She said, undressing, to love is to be
an orphan hiding from a hurricane in
a church made of glass. Impractical, I
said, and I don’t like metaphors in bed
anymore, in my old age, any more than I
like spiders. Then, as we made love, she
said, you’re an orphan, hiding from a hurricane.
Oh, I said, are you a church made of glass?
Well, she said, I’m a little cracked, aren’t I?
Outside, cars slithered by, oblivious, exhaust
fumes tingeing humid summer air. You’re
cracked alright, and so is your sister, I see.
I baited her to collapse onto my chest,
throwing stones side-armed, at this glass church

Ruth would have to be, to be here. She
herself took time to investigate adultery, as
other writers had— out of boredom, maybe,
or out of her own side-armed need to express
something more than the suburbs. That’s where,
unfortunately, they had her. She would not
want her husband shown— I will not show him.
I will only say that what people who want to
write work in on the side may be of interest or
not, but manifests instincts we shared together,
then and now. A month later: the City Hall court
yard blazed with summer heat. We were over, that
was it. She wanted, she said, some order and discipline
in her life. Before us lies eternity, I said. Or eternal lies.

© Adam Fieled 2018-2026