Whites in Congo Flee by Ferry
New York Times, July 9, 1960: Reports of rape and murder by drunken
African troops threw whites into a panic in Leopoldville today and sent
men, women, and children fleeing in terror for safety.
To flee. To feel. Distance signified by an order of consonants.
To be aware. Of someone. Of some thing. Through touch.
Through being touched. To sense flame. To meet its embers,
the matter that remains after, or sometimes precedes, a fire. To run
from a place, a site of danger (when you are the danger). To scurry
aboard the ferry, suitcases in hand. To have no words for this.
Cobalt
Word the other and make the world.
Name the land Maiden. Mother.
Mineral field.
Blue as the cobalt contained in my hand.
Blue as a sky full of satellites.
Radio waves sent
Down.
Dark as the mine.
Dark as a pithead of minerals-making-possible.
Dark as the skin
Of the collier.
White as the resource-
War.
White as a colonization.
Green as the jungle to get there.
Green as the top of the earth there.
Massive lung. Human
Lung.
Called is the jewel
Of the earth:
Tantalum from coltan.
Diamond. Gleaming.
Culled is the copper. Orange glow.
Culled the cobalt.
Culled the wrist’s
Gold.
These poems are part of the book Three Leaves, Three Roots, forthcoming from Beacon Press in January, 2025.