Writing without my glasses I can see the blue lines, the white spaces, but the words are blurred, though my pen knows these familiar tracks on the page, my efforts resembling a child’s birthday party at the bowling alley, where rubber bumpers in the gutters of the lanes guide the ball to the pins, promising the topple of at least one, however slow and lazy the meander down the slick, polished alley, the ball almost stopping at times, the child and her friends cheering wildly, GO! GO! even blowing, puffing— as if a collective breath would be enough to propel an eight pound ball to an exact strike between the one pin and the two, that sweet pocket that activates the synchronized tumble of all ten, which will teeter, slow motion, like drunks in the glare of daylight who’ve come from a dimly lit bar, tottering and laughing and not succeeding in staying upright.