I Packed the First PCs

Gates and Jobs had long left
their garages sheathed in silicone,
giddy golden college dropouts

when I packed the first PCs at IBM;
a perpetual hangover held tight by a hardhat,
laminated forklift permit on a lanyard.

I would have spent a “gap-year” there
shoulder to shoulder with shift-working
proles, cramming cables into boxes

on that assembly line. It was a fine summer
gig for an hungover brat
full of toxins and testosterone.

Mindless was fine by me, as I was numb
and would sing and hum. Almost happy.
The guy says what did you do with the money

your mother gave you for singing lessons,
and I said boxing lessons instead.
He says sorry dude I was just joking

and that’s when I saw her smiling
at me from over his shoulder.
I knew she was married. Not just the ring

but the steroid pumping husband who picked her
up some days after work. The evening shifts we’d share
were different, and somehow we all got home.

But that day I was in, and that night we roamed out
to one of those working class late-night bars
somewhere off the A1A strip, probably

Lauderdale, a place that plays Margaritaville
every hour on the hour, garlic bread and clam chowder.
Best fuckin shit you ever put in your mouth

everyone agreed, and I couldn’t even tell
if she was still looking at me. Everything blurry or double
and I don’t remember the drive or whose car

we were in, but I can still see the table,
the mirror and the thin white tracks and stacks
of powder, and their faces in the bare bulb light,

the excitement of the what-now vibe
even before the jolt of the coke, like I’d popped right
through that mirror into a new wonderland.

I steadied my hand and clamped one nostril tight
like I was some kind of sharpshooter, rip-jeaned
and sweaty, moving from scope to sight.

Speaking artificial intelligence, I’d found a new power
for years that kept me going all night.
A virtual reality. That and those first PCs.