Code
We sat at our stations like engineers
Tasked with getting astronauts home.
This when the computers were
As deep as they were tall and wide.
Black screen and green text.
The cursor throbbing like a pulse.
The hum of the monitors, the heat
Generated by their toiling brains
Tripping their fans, and the clatter
Of fingers on keys that were as tall
As they were wide and deep.
If we finished programming Frogger
Before the bell rang, we could play,
Though the point wasn’t whether
The frog made it across the road,
But that there be a road, and a frog
Trying to get across it alive, at all.
Our teacher’s name was Mr. Koppi.
He wore the thin tie and white shirt
Of a Nixon staffer, his protected
Pocket bristling with bleeding pens.
A character from another America,
Dying out as we grew up, new rye
Seething up through dry stubble.
He liked to place his hairy hands
On my shoulders as if for support
As he leaned over me to see what
I was typing, as if I was typing
Something original, when I was only
Copying code Mr. Koppi had copied.
Kids who’d made it across the road
Of that school before us without
Getting crushed had discovered that
If you spelled his name backwards it made
You say, in spite of yourself, I pee pee ok.
It was a kind of code, passed down
From year to year, the laughter
It triggered automatic, like a glitch
You can trace back to a keystroke.