Father of the Bowling Ball

FATHER OF THE BOWLING BALL

I remember finding father's
big black bowling ball.
The three holes were like
some wondrous face,
it looked the way he looked
through his whole broken life:
dumbfounded, stunned,
wondering what life was
and how he was to live it.
The holes were too deep for me
to reach, the rims wide and sharp,
and their span stretched farther
than my hand would ever grow to
in adulthood. Its bag had
plastic handles, the zipper
brittle like a broken serpent
and one white rag to wipe it
smooth. And the ball,
the ball was big and black,
he banged it down the alleys
and it carried every scar
the way he carried scars,
right there on the surface,
right where you can see them,
if you look up close: a whole
geography of pain, a whole
world of slamming into
pins, knocking them down and
down and down again.

I watched him bowl as a boy,
I saw the way he balanced the ball
on his thick fingers, I saw him stare
at the pins in concentration, and
the slow shuffle forward, how
his hand came back and his back bent
down, his arm raised high, big hand
gripping hard, then it snapped
forward like a spring, his leg kicked
out and he reached toward the pins,
a god sending energy into the air and
waiting, waiting, watching
for what happens.


Richard Smyth

Posted over on Anabiosis Press