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Rumi and Kabir Bowling
A poem about their divine, late night antics
I have been to the place where Rumi and Kabir
are bowling all night long.
They are rolling perfectly round balls
down a perfectly polished alleyway,
laughing at the sound of the pins
falling down again and again and again.
Every time they bowl a strike even when the miss,
which is often,
their aim wandering in fabulously random ways
around this grand interior space.
Rumi orders a shot of Red Eye, Kabir a Bud Lite,
their clinking of glasses
some kind of esoteric temple bell ritual
neither of them understand.
They keep drinking and laughing and drinking again,
knocking back the elixir of their late night bowling life
and muttering under their barely moving breath
about the strangers outside
returning from yet another night shift.
Rumi opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out,
Kabir, long beard flecked with foam, orders a second
and then a third as…
