Course Selection (for IDs of 6 digits or less)

Course Selection (for IDs of 6 digits or less)
By Priscilla McKinney

It was like a gourmet menu
that “Timetable” of upcoming courses
a fat catalogue of newsprint
listing classes, times, descriptions
that I perused endlessly
imagining, arranging, rethinking
which I’d most enjoy and how
they’d fill my schedule.

Then on registration day
a trek to and through
the Fieldhouse to wait in lines
with fingers crossed at every table
hoping for openings to classes
that I found most appealing
and for that large computer card
which saved a place for me.

Now it’s all done through the Internet
one more fixation at the screen.
You can’t flop across the bed
on one elbow, flipping pages
sampling and savoring for hours.
It’s like fast food now, uninspiring
not the same delicious fare
for future thought it used to be.