Apollo

Apollo

BY ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

We pull off

to a road shack

in Massachusetts

to watch men walk

on the moon. We did   

the same thing

for three two one

blast off, and now

we watch the same men   

bounce in and out

of craters. I want

a Coke and a hamburger.

Because the men

are walking on the moon   

which is now irrefutably   

not green, not cheese,

not a shiny dime floating   

in a cold blue,

the way I'd thought,

the road shack people don't

notice we are a black   

family not from there,   

the way it mostly goes.   

This talking through

static, bounces in space-

boots, tethered   

to cords is much   

stranger, stranger

even than we are.