“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 © 2025 Ken Harnisch