ESTEBAN RODRÍGUEZ Ode to Dial-Up

ESTEBAN RODRÍGUEZ

Ode to Dial-Up

The century arrived, and I made an altar of cords, modems, of wires I knew not where to plug, of a desk I'd sit in front of for hours, typing papers, typing projects, hoping the signal wouldn't slow or disconnect, and that I wouldn't have to kneel, uncoil the labyrinth of cables, speak to them as though they were on the brink of death, and think, while I waited for something within them to give, that such delays were penance for the pages I visited, for the nights when I watched two bodies tangle into one, and when I'd slide my hand beneath my shorts, tell myself—as I confessed when homework was late— that some things were beyond my control.