Zoom Rooms - Mary Jo Salter

[Larry Robinson]

Zoom Rooms


Followers and Friends and Participants, 
Gallery View, which Speaker View supplants, 
Meeting Attendants, who for now are Mute 
or worse, Unmute, a word I might dispute 
even exists, whether verb or adjective: 
Is this life? Is this how you want to live? 
Nose-scratches broadcast, thoughts shrunk to an icon 
or two (Clap, Thumbs Up), and if you leave your mic on 
while others talk, your faintest sighing framed 
in gold light like a vanity mirror? Named 
on your little tile, you can’t slip out unseen. 
Self-surveilled, your eye contact on-screen 
seems off. Don’t look at people! Focus where 
the tiny camera is that proves you’re there.

*

Bookcase-prop and real or fake bouquet 
behind you, well-dressed only to the waist 
as if in a casket, top half on display, 
here’s another weirdness to be faced: 
you’re in the Gallery. You’re shown as one 
of your own satellites—as if the sun 
were both a planet and the Copernican 
magnet for all planets. Yes, I can 
undo all this and activate the Hide 
Self feature . . . where was that again? It’s hidden 
nearly as neatly as the moon’s dark side. 
But that’s like suicide. It feels forbidden 
now that I’m linked to the beloved spectator 
who is myself: light-source and shadowed crater.

*

Here, as professor, I am Host; Enable 
the Waiting Room, and one by one Admit 
my students etherized around a table 
in the Platonic classroom where they sit— 
or recline in bed. Protest this? I don’t dare. 
Full roster: nobody’s ill! Smile and wave 
hello, a new habit. Can you hear me? Share 
Screen, clicking a doc I thought to Save 
to Desktop on my laptop. This is normal. 
Mixed metaphors, and no term we have chosen 
ourselves. Whether our verse was free or formal, 
we thought we were free thinkers . . .  Oops, you’re frozen, 
we’re bound to say. We sign on for more jargon. 
Paste in the password, try to Join again.

	- Mary Jo Salter