Jordan Cobb

My parents kept the computer in the formal dining room, 

next to the old oak table passed down from grandaddy’s will —

the one we set with the good linen & wedding china

on Thanksgiving & Christmas & Easter, pretending 

the surface wasn’t chipped or scratched, like the paint

on the cabinet where the old machine lived. 

Between those doors lay another world: 

away messages on AIM, CDs of Nancy Drew hunting 

bad guys down in Maine, Carmen Sandiego always leaving

clues. In the first YouTube algorithms, nothing ended 

up on a ‘recommended’ list, so I could search for anything 

I wanted. Could type the words with my eyes closed:  

girls kissing girls

My favorite scenes took place in massage parlors, 

white cloths covering tables, women in wife beaters oiling shoulders

in candlelit rooms where everything was a fire hazard.  

At the end of the videos, I’d hit replay, 

rewind to where their tongues met like starfish limbs,

wrestling & fighting, pushing between lips. 

I wanted to be the body lying flat beneath those manicured hands, 

to know the steps when asked to dance; so, I waited 

until I was alone, opening Firefox at every chance.

Never tired of the flickering shadows cast on maroon walls, 

the tension of foreplay & pretense. 

I kept the volume low 

to hear the garage door rattle open

when my parents got home.