The Last Days of Zoom

Photo by lucas law on Unsplash

The other morning, I was sitting on a Zoom call with people I have never met in person, who are still as dear to me as the friends I can (someday soon) hug and touch, thinking about how this Zoom space has become both a prison and a comfort. This is an attempt to capture that feeling.

Sitting on a Zoom call in the last days of the pandemic,

when we trust our faces to function inside a shifting square

(Does anyone still get dizzy when a new person joins the call

and we all scatter to another part of the screen?

Is it just me trying to follow my own face,

to rest my eyes on something I can also smell, and touch?)

We have learned to ignore the camera

while we frown and stare and scratch at our noses.

I rest in the dimensions of this space --

while the world opens up outside,

the school across the way finally hums with child voices,

and the downstairs neighbor leaves every day at 9 dressed in tailored clothes --

these laptop-sized dimensions still fit,

have always fit.

(Remember when “zoom” meant that thing your cat does to release energy,

or the thing children say as they run down a hill

pretending to fly?)

I linger in this screen for a while,

held in a box like a feral cat,

I will sniff the air and wait --

when it is time,

no force on earth will keep me contained.