where's your mother?

i remember my father getting up

from the over stuffed

couch, beer in hand,

a pipe stinking up the room,

and going to the tv to smack

it on the side, trying to fix

the picture as the horizontal

control went wild.

back then the tv

looked like a dresser.

or a nightstand.  when ours

finally caught fire and  broke

down for good, my father refused

to get rid of it, calling

it a good piece of furniture.

I think this wood is maple, he said.

it went into the corner

where my mother put a vase

of flowers on it, as if it

was a grave site.

i learned most of my swear

words during these times

when the picture went

haywire.  he'd yell out, okay,

what the hell now?

ever since the Russians

put that goddamn sputnik

in the sky i can't get my shows on.

his shows being Jackie Gleason

and the Honey Mooners, or the Miss

America Pageant.

he'd twist some dials in the back

like a safe cracker,

then fiddle with the antennae 

and tell me to go get a roll

of tin foil from the kitchen.

he'd build up the long metal

rabbit ears, wiggle them around,

smack the side again, until

finally a snowy picture,

but unmoving, might appear.

he'd yell out,

okay, don't move, don't move

an inch, hold the dog down,

then he'd go back to

his chair slowly so as not to

interfere with the f...ing gamma

rays as he called them.

he'd sip from his beer,

take a long drag off his pipe

and  say something like,

where's your mother? why 

aren't you outside playing?

i'd tell him because it's

ten o'clock at night and it's

dark out... i think mom is upstairs

crying in the bathroom again.