Be More Like Sputnik Monroe

W. Todd Kaneko

When my father died, he left me a trove

           of video tapes, a warped memorial

for those men he watched with my mother

           before she left for parts unknown,

for those fights he relived once he was laid

           off from the plane yards. We watched

men like Sputnik Monroe bleed the hard way,

           shook our fists as he broke rules

against guys who were easier to cheer.

           He was a bad Elvis, greased-back

hair with a shock of white, Sputnik Monroe

           mixed it up everywhere, a rodeo

fistfight, a henhouse tornado. My mother

           picked a fight in an Idaho truck stop

once, stabbed a man’s chest with her middle

           finger, then stepped to one side

so my father could fight him in the parking lot.

           Afterwards, my mother was silent

all the way back to Seattle, her disgust

           with him—the way he wrapped his arm

around her shoulder, guided her to the car,

           and sped back to the freeway—hanging

between them from that point forward.

           Sputnik Monroe clobbered men

wherever he went, sneered at those fists

           raised against him in Memphis.

Some nights, as my wife sleeps upstairs,

           I watch my father’s video tapes and

imagine what I would have done that day

           if I knew that my marriage depended

on what I did with my hands.