When the thunderclap was a cosmic crash, when it shook
the foundation of the house until the vibration rippled upstairs

to the room my brother and I shared,
we called it a strike.

And when it sounded like a train that had passed,
a rumbling in the distance, the sky merely clearing its throat,

we admitted that even God sometimes threw a gutter ball.
The only picture of my grandfather I remember

is of him in a suit and tie holding a bowling ball to his heart,
eyeing pins at the end of a lane.

His obituary from 1959 read, Giuseppe Stefano, Expert Duckpin Bowler;
not what my mother had told me about him –

farmer, immigrant, factory worker, gardener –
but rather, what I imagined him to be –

herder of storm clouds, gatherer of sky,
hands that make thunder.

CHRIS ABBATE’s poems have appeared in Connecticut River Review, Cider Press Review, and Comstock Review, among others. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net award nominee and has received awards in the Nazim Hikmet and the North Carolina Poetry Society’s poetry contests. Abbate’s first book of poetry, Talk About God, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company. His second book, Words for Flying, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press.