Door of the Cosmos
I am not in life or love but a voyeur.
When there was something to believe in
I believed and now that there is nothing,
I believe in nothing. I had been taught
how to be perfect but not how to live.
I ride in a rainbow-sherbet spaceship.
On replay, the cockpit blasts
A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Space Program.”
The Milky Way is an ocean of black coffee
holes. From the observation deck, I observe
how the men carry woe atop their heads.
From Black Bell (Copper Canyon Press, 2024) by Alison C. Rollins. Copyright © 2024 by Alison C. Rollins. Used with the permission of the publisher.
Alison C. Rollins
Alison C. Rollins holds a bachelor of science from Howard University, a master of fine arts from Brown University, and a master of library and information science from the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.