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Happy Days

by Ken Harnisch

“Sunday, Monday

Happy Days.

Tuesday, Wednesday

Happy Days….”

 

My mother slept with the enemy

Every Sunday. In the afternoons

While the smoking meat still

Reeked and left a film on the

Casement window glass.

 

She would take his hand

Because he rocked on his

Highball lightened feet

And with that foolish smile

Lead him to the bedroom

 

They closed the door, ka-boom!

It sounded like a shot, and my

Brother’s eyes

Would look at me and say

What neither of us dared out loud.

 

Would the gun we put to his

Breast in our blackest dreams

Have made any louder a report?

And who would heft the murder weapon

Was always left unsaid. 

 

Perhaps one of the six children

From his previous marriage would fire

The .38, we hoped. But once his first wife

Died, he packed them up in cardboard

(Without the styrofoam peanuts)

And installed them in an orphanage.

 

“Mama needs a man,” one of my half-sisters said

“It’s in her blood, like a drug.” And I always said,

Being the witty one, “Perhaps next time she

Might think of using heroin.”

But we were the lucky ones, his second family

 

He slapped her around a lot on Saturdays

Knocked her off her crutches once

When she was six months pregnant

But on Sundays, she’d take him by

The hand, and guide him to her bed

“Mama needs a man.”  

 

No one stood outside the door

To hear the lovely sounds of love

They made. We were to baste the turkey

And make sure the potatoes didn’t overcook

In the big Dutch oven on the tiny stove.

 

And when they emerged, him with that goofy,

Glassy look in his eyes, and she

With that silly smile,

We were granted temporary reprieve

Until he slapped her around at

Dinnertime, then finally

Stumbled off to bed

 

At his wake, years afterward,

Mama cried at his coffin,

While my brother and I

Played Crazy Eights

On the chairs in the back of the funeral home

01/12/2003

Posted on 02/18/2003
Copyright © 2024 Ken Harnisch

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 02/18/03 at 09:06 PM

Riveting read from start to finish. The spent fuel of a master wordsmith.

Posted by Melissa Arel on 02/19/03 at 03:34 AM

I remember this.. it was startling when I first read it.. the truth revealed hurts - even to just read the words. Like Chris commented above - it is certainly riveting..

Posted by Kate Demeree on 02/19/03 at 03:28 PM

There is a part of me that understands this so perfectly that commenting may be long. No matter how many times I have read this my heart aches for the children anew each time. How our pasts shape us into the people we grow to be, the experiences of childhood, we think far behind us, rising when least expected. The boys playing crazy 8's somehow left to feel strangely guilty, perhaps, for not mourning, and feeling relief instead. I have known that feeling, no remorse, just a sence of atlast it is over. Yet it isn't ever over is it? Strange the ways a heart works, sad how profoundly the illness of adults affects children. It takes much courage to revisit the past and face the ghosts. Not sure if this comment makes much sense, just that this poem is deeply moving... and it's echoes go on

Posted by Quinlan L Gibson on 02/19/03 at 04:52 PM

This is a work of art. An epidemic captured and put on paper.

Posted by Lori Johnson on 02/21/03 at 04:02 PM

I have no comprehension of this life whatsoever, I am lucky, I know. But, thank you for painting a very vivid picute so I might see & understand. I feel as if I've been punched in the stomach & can't catch my breath.

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