A BOWLING POEM BY M.A.H. HINTON

this was meant
to be a poem
about bowling

about growing up
in a little
Montana town
where I went
league bowling
every Saturday morning
and never
managed to bowl
over 120
but still
somehow
kept a 114 average

every game
was essentially the same

like every Saturday

like every day
of school

and every Sunday
church service

but now
this is no longer a poem
about bowling

or about the town
I grew up in

or even the mountains
around the town

it has become a poem
about the monotony
of youth

about the end
of understanding anything
we ever thought
we understood

about the end
of knowing anything
with certainty
ever again