A smile to remember: Because Bukowski still knows best

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