Two Poems

AVEC (Ah-vek):

I.
My favorite foreign word and the word
of my sexual dreams. Avec lover.
Avec or sans clothing.

II.
Pronounced yes
with the face plain as a plowed field.

Pronounced no
in your neon lipstick.

III.
The lavender soap smell of everything French and possible
in the warm morning.

IV.
Also, with with a spear going through it.

V.
The front teeth biting
the bottom lip. The mouth
finishing in the shape of a question.

Vandalism

is saving your child’s emotional life.
So relax a little. Enjoy the ride
to the station where he’s sitting alone,
bent over himself like hands in prayer.
Look at him. Haven’t we all suffered enough?
Isn’t our own suffering, for God’s sake,
another child anyway.
This isn’t time to question upbringing.
The barn, after all, looked abandoned enough
and his arms so strong holding that big rock.
Look, he put it to his cheek. It was rough
like his father’s face when his father still kissed him goodnight.
So, he broke the window. So he broke
all the windows. So what? What other vocabulary
does a twelve year old have
besides the heavy-handed beauty
of sunlight on a thousand pieces of glass?
One body breaking through another.