THE BODY

Vantablack

By Dane Cobain

You’d look good
in vantablack,
the blackest of blacks
built from a forest
of carbon nanotubes
on aluminum foil,
absorbing light
at 99.99% efficiency
and turning it into heat
or something.

Now,
I don’t do science
or colors,
but I know you’d look good
covered in
vertically aligned
nanotube arrays.

It’s like
Sir Anish Kapoor,
who said it’s like paint
and imagined a space
so dark
that you forget who you are
and what time it is.

You have great resistance
to vibrations,
greater thermal stability
and military applications
and I know you’re not NASA
but you’d look good
in vantablack.

Now
we just need
to find
a brighter
red.

Dane Cobain (High Wycombe, UK) is an author, freelance writer, and (occasional) poet and musician with a passion for language and learning. He is the author of two books of poetry: Eyes Like Lighthouses When the Boats Come Home and Oceanus. He has also published numerous works of literary and genre fiction and nonfiction, including No Rest for the Wicked (supernatural thriller), Former.ly (literary fiction), and Social Paranoia (non-fiction). More information at DaneCobain.com.