LatinosUSA

After Monica Prince

I’m seated here before my son’s
computer trying to make sense of why
this box always called for him.
Why he had to tan himself with its glow,
humming the Windows startup sound
instead of hymns, hands not clasped
in prayer but held flat like someone
was going to stab the gaps between his
fingers with a switchblade.
I know teenage boys are prone to spending
too much time in front of their computers.
It’s supposed to be a Zoomer thing.
I know he probably was looking at stuff
he couldn’t talk about around the dinner table.
I know he was talking with more people
then there are here in our town.
But I want to know why it was more important
than me? Than his grandmother? His grandfather?
Why did he stand at the end of a dock and stare
at a red recording light, dreaming of a future
creating content at a house in Los Angeles?
Why did he hold mascara wands like incense sticks
and rubbed ashes found in a MAC container
over his eyelids? Why did he speak in phrases
the Rosetta Stone couldn’t translate for me?
Why did he find salvation for all his issues
in a search bar instead of in a message
signed, sealed, and delivered from my heart to his?
I could hope to see if there were any files stored
away that could tell me why he left this all behind,
why he decided he couldn’t keep me in
his life, why the promises of another man
lured him far from here. He left the password to
his computer on the back of a Shake Shack receipt
in his drawer, so I’m hoping someone somewhere
in all the ones and zeroes can help me
zero in on the one solid reason why my son is gone.
I see a red light before me, but does that mean the
camera is on, or am I just speaking to the warm glass?

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