I
Among eighteen black squares,
the only moving thing
was my cursor.
II
I was of thirty minds
like a laptop
with thirty tabs open.
III
A student’s voice suddenly reverberated
through the classroom speaker, like God.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A teacher and a student
Are one.
A teacher and a student
and the student’s cat
that thinks the green light of the camera is a bug
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
the beauty of a student delivering
a watershed point while lying prostrate on his floor.
Or the beauty of the inside of a cat’s mouth.
The students coming or the students going.
VI
Virtual hands went up then vanished
like frost in a window.
A student’s camera flickered on, then off.
The mood sputtered like a bubble machine.
Or an exhaust pipe. Indecipherable.
VII
O Socrates,
how would you run an online seminar?
Should I just have them “talk” to each other
in a Google Doc?
VIII
I know the sound of a student
who did the reading.
But I know, too,
the Dungeons and Dragons theme song.
IX
When the students did not respond
I checked for the ninth time
if I was muted.
I wasn’t.
X
At the sight of eighteen students
showing their faces to the little green light,
even a jellyfish
would cry out joyfully.
XI
She drove the forty minutes to school
suppressing the vague fear
that today was the day she would project
one of the twenty-nine tabs she shouldn’t.
XII
The traffic is barely moving.
The students are still sleeping.
XIII
It was winter all year.
It was close to over
and it was never going to end.
The students sat invisibly on the Google Meet,
waiting for her to let them in
while also doing a thousand other things.