Man’s Excuse

Rustin Larson

When I was in Ohio running away from oatmeal it seemed like it would take forever to get home

I wandered barefoot through closed department stores I interrupted women in their bathrooms

my mother welcomed me back begrudgingly and gave me a mismatched pair of bowling shoes to wear

and told me I could not outrun prophecy I am resting at the bottom of the washbasin

near the drain I am welcome to drink all the water I want

I was once her treasure she once took me shopping for vacuum cleaners

and bought me Little Golden Books at Kresge’s

where did I go wrong the church’s carpet is a plush red velvet

it reminds us of he who died for our sins I have no more advice

I am going back to Ohio to run away from oatmeal again and hitchhike on fire trucks

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Johnnie Each

scene one

it starts with a school boy and his black eye. cavernous purple and foamy swells like an ocean across his face. this scene is too american for its own good; inside this boy’s gaping mouth femininity becomes the vindication for fists flying, fighting for the hand of a girl who didn’t belong to him in the first place. she is not a blue ribbon, not a laurel, not a trophy to be brawled for. but by this war of a boy, front-line knuckles shredded and salty, she becomes an excuse. School boy tells father,

“well, there was this girl.”

scene two

this courtroom smells an awful lot like piss and sour beer. the woman reminds herself to breathe in eight counts (she used to dance when she was young) but even so, as she stumbles back to her seat she trips on the shrugged-off responsibility. she hits her hip on the abandoned ownership. inside her mind she is thinking, this is what it looks like when testosterone goes bad, stinks up the fridge like the father who beats his son and calls it manhood. she avoids the defendant’s eyes as he begins his testimony,

“well, there was this girl.”

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