I Am

after Pete Weber

ITS NOT HOW U BOWL, ITS HOW U ROLL, or so

says the sign outside the of the tiger bowl in madrid,

iowa. after plaza lanes caught fire and burned everything,

the thirty-foot tall neon bowler and the sex toy vending

machine in the bathroom, the tiger bowl out here in the

weeds has gotten crowded, even on non-league nights.

which is bad news for cosmic bowling, a kind of interstellar

weeknight promotion that i cannot with any human

words come close to describing.

mostly i’m the boy they

call up from the back when the ball gets caught and held

in the gutter for longer than it should. some place between

the butcher’s wax shining up these lanes and the clouds of

shoe spray darkening up the light above the cash register, i

reside in a house with frames for ten windows that close only

on summer nights when god throws again with his righteous

and thunderous hand and knocks out the power. didn’t someone

tell you that too, when you were small and still got to bowl

with the bumpers to guide you all the way down the narrow

lane? that lightning was a strike and that thunder was a spare.

i forgot what rain was supposed to be. maybe it was the sweat

off god’s throwing hand being held in front of that little dryer

where the balls return. or maybe, after recording the latest three-

hundred game, it was the spit chasing after that eternal question:

who do you think you are?

Avery Gregurich is a writer living and working in Marengo, Iowa. He was raised next to the Mississippi River, and has never strayed too far from it.