Timothy Robbins

Tipton Poetry Journal – Summer 2021

Bowling

Timothy Robbins

The years since I last went bowling are piled up in the corner, mixed in with a mess of other discarded changes. They urge me tonight and I agree to become a choreographer and make pas de deux and whole ballets and Busby Berkeley showstoppers based on the working class

grace of bowlers from my hometown; young svelte Korean men who stray to the other side of the world with their sexy bowlers’ gloves, leather cats that sleep in their trunks and purr on their palms; my choicest Stanley Kowalski fantasy (the hand dryer’s warm breath

plays a crucial role); the awkwardness of the awkward who gather at the lane for fun; the strike I made against all odds at a high school party; Robert Endris, a wrestler for whom I set up my pins every night. More often than not he scattered them with a meteorite.

Timothy Robbins has been teaching English as a Second Language for 30 years. His poems have appeared in many literary journals and has published five volumes of poetry: Three New Poets (Hanging Loose Press), Denny’s Arbor Vitae (Adelaide Books), Carrying Bodies (Main Street Rag Press) Mother Wheel (Cholla Needles Press) and This Night I Sup in Your House (Cyberwit.net). He lives in Wisconsin with his husband of 23 years.