a smile to remember By Charles Bukowski
we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture
window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, “be happy, Henry!”
and she
was right: it’s better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week
while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn’t
understand what was attacking him from within.
my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: “Henry,
smile!
why don’t you ever smile?”
and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw.
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