I can remember being seven years old

Having goldfish that circuled around in a bowl

I would watch the forest burn

and listen to the wind blow

I remember the table, the drapes, and the window

The dark brown everything: decoration, styling

Most of all, I can remember my mother smiling

Worn out and faded, my hometown was scrappy

More than anything she wanted us to be happy

Little to eat and back and forth to the hospital

She was right, it's better to be happy if possible

But the old man was under attack and was weak

And continued to beat us several times a week

He lived like a king even though we were piss poor

I tried to be strong and careful what I wished for

My outside ached, my inside stung

The long leather belt had replaced his tongue

Not knowing how to run or how

to hit the brakes

A white picket fence was built

around a pit of snakes

Both a wonder and frightening,

the thunder and the lightning

These were the sounds and sights

of a thousand fights

My mother, the poor fish, staging eternal

Charades and parades, for the raging inferno

Wanting to be happy, beaten all the while

Asking me always: "Why don't you ever smile?"

And she'd show me how to do it,

mother and wife

It was the saddest smile I ever saw in my life

It hurt worse than death but for her sake I tried

And one day all of those goldfish died

Hurricane, forest fire, out of control

Eyes open, floating on the water in the bowl

And when my father came home,

he walked through the door

And threw those fish to the cat

on the kitchen floor

And the wind died too and I was still a child

And the three of us watched as my mother smiled