Friday, May 20, 2016

Goldfish make me smile!

http://joan-reese.pixels.com/featured/smiling-gold-fish-joan-reese.html
A Smile To Remember 

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 

one day the goldfish died, all five of them, 
they floated on the water, on their sides, their 
eyes still open, 
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat 
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother 
smiled 

Charles Bukowski 

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