If there was ever a chance to go to outer space,
it wasn’t here & it wasn’t for me, as off balance
on this distant planet as a buster getting a mouthful
of knuckles. If there was a possibility of making it
out of this heliosphere, there never really was.
Four eyes giggling at me like a laugh track. Black
skin, you can’t win in the space race no matter
what Sun Ra says. Everyone except him agreeing
on these facts like a laugh track. Looking up through
the round circumstance of a basketball hoop from
a suburb of amateur astronauts. Looking up from this
corner of black constriction & wind knocked out
of words. This cricket-ticking suburb of fanciful
neighbors & their distant, but unrelenting chatter.
From Map to the Stars by Adrian Matejka, published by Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2017 by Adrian Matejka.