Two Poems
Joel Breuklander

I'm Proving You

Can't have someone without later, eventually, renaming him Joel. It makes him easier to slight, harder to hand pity to; more interesting to watch, surprising, maybe, because of the preconceptions attached to men under that name. I can abuse him without guilt, voice raised and arched like an arm arrayed against him. He can bargain with me to let him go. I can know he'll have no such luxury.


But Then Instead He:

Finds loose wires, siphons electricity. Rebels, vaticinates at night. Invents his own new radiance. Invents the ends of same. Finds ways around me, finds purpose. Tricks me, throws his voice. Tells the sins of my sons and mine as my father's son. Attempts to prove me or prove me wrong, re: the argument I am always making -- that when I said I "took" him as my lover, it meant he had no choice.

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