If I were to write an ode to black,
My words would flash and crackle
like the carapace
of an ancient beetle.
My fingers would tangle and weave
in black cotton clouds.

Patent leather cat,
jaws cracking open
on adoring air.
The room stirs the
jet stream of her black fur.

If space is not a vacuum,
why is it so cold?
And why do its dark pulses
tickle airlessness
and teach us to build
nothing out of something?
Blackness has a name,
flashing between bright stars,
and a purpose,
but I do not know
what that is.