Stone Age Scholarship

“A Typewriter” by Alfred S Mira

 

memory lingers in fingers

embedded with ritual

duties to doctors and deans

inserting two spools

tying ink imbued ribbon

clicking the roller knobs

captured pale onionskins

slipping on interleaved

blue carbon films

mechanical qwerty

deep fingertip plungers

inlaid with bakelite keys

hyphenate at the bell

sweep the pinky-flanged lever

for carriage return

to start the next line

wheeled erasers with brushes

or white fluid masks

atoned any errors

caught by the spellchecker

housed in our eyes

no wonder what makes

for a modern all-nighter

back then took a

full sleepless week

and yet no one needed

more time than four years

to reach their degree