Having watched for years a Man maul
A Woman whose only sin, it seemed,
Was marrying him, I have achieved
A bitter scorn for men with fists
And the bottles from which their
Anger rises like a mushroom cloud
Over weekend Hiroshimas

But having watched the battered
Woman carry on, and call it courage,
Then bring her assassin, unapologetically,
To her marriage bed, I confess
To knowing better than most the
Definition of deep ambivalence

I myself never fell in love with rowdies
And hardly tolerated even friendly drunks;
The rupture of civility in the most
Profound fools I’ve known became
Their one unforgivable sin, and
Without the post card, they were banished

But, it was harder to rid oneself of the fairer sex
And even those who suffered the blows
Of their loving men without regret
Earned a pass from self-righteous froth
And the judgment of my Gods.

The one I once loved would recite, with
The requisite sparkle in her eyes, how
He would push her head into his lap
When he wanted to get off. And though she swore
There was no mutual satisfaction involved
She would tell me this with her nipples taut
And her wet lips gleaming in the car

I have often wondered (sorry, victimologists)
How many nice guys Nicole shunted aside in
Her troubled life so she could be battered
By a gentleman with a gun held to his own
Head in a new white Bronco.

And while I detest the criminal
Who, while acquitted of the crime,
Shall bear its guilt forever, I am caught
In the maelstrom of thinking the first time
His fists found her body should have
Been the last.

But we all go round and round, do we not?
And believing the Good Book that forgiveness
Is paramount to a righteous life; that one cheek
Deserves a battering as vicious as the other;
That love conquers all, despite evidence to contrary,
We saddle up with a smile.

Then watch the marauders on TV
Riding the I-5 with their worshippers
Singing hallelujahs from the overpass.

06/23/2014

Author's Note: Just to be clear: Society, not the victims, allows the abusers latitude to be themselves.

Posted on 06/23/2014
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch