600

When the final pin
tips,

spinning one last time
before falling with the rest,

when the gate comes down heavily
and brushes the pins aside,

when you turn at last and smile,
your friend's cheers slicing into the silence that held you the last ten frames,

this brand new drama
unfolding before them all (not once, but twice),

those inward gazesfinally focusing
on the beer bottles lining the wall,

on the ash trays piled high with
smoldering butts,

smoke rising high above their heads
so suddenly and slowly

it's possible it arrived before them,
this will all seem unfinished. all of it.

like you're waiting for that proper turn of phrase
that never comes,

the kind that shift conversations
to new topics with greater promise of being carried further

of being plumbed to their absolute depths
before they give way to the nothing

of lost words, of all those downed pins
and everything else that must learn to die within them.