You push down once and it begins 
its cylindrical descent, another 
depression or two and the transferable 
toxin appears in all its half-millimeter 
glory…

A few years ago, I was still 
composing everything on paper: the 
scattered ideas of mid-afternoon, the lists of 
gratitude, the three-page outline 
for a conference presentation.

When I tell my students that I didn’t 
have a PC in college, they respond with 
brow-contorting squints, arrested musculature 
of the face, and I find myself 
increasingly frightened by their disbelief.

I tell them they should try it sometime:

the pencil to paper intercourse that 
allows you to feel the potholes of memory, 
take literal detours around self-imposed 
roadblocks of eraser shavings, reckon your 
philosophic musings with the inevitable
disruption of flow, the scraping of hard plastic 
against the surface of recycled wood pulp.

The more writerly of the lot nods in 
agreement, almost fooling me into 
believing that Thoreau was wrong about the past, 
that, in fact, the previous generation 
was wiser for having come before the rest.