Indigofera3
I want the Indica color built up
plantations from swamp lands—
for my hands to be blued
in vats of boiled water cuffed to yards
of anil steeped cloths. To hold its hues,
I must carry the thick
sputum of dye from water
to the scalded wringing of death
in outlet of fields.
Big as may-haw berries, horseflies hang
low, lick the rot
of lye smoke and seethed stems,
reminding me, I must be careful
to not keep my hands submerged
too long. Indigo,
as history, clutches fast,
clots poisonous in the pores and cuticle beds.
It must be cleared like lead
wort, dead red nettle, forget me nots, the roots
of a thousand and one Atlantic crossings—
the mutiny of heteroglossia utterances, cyan
tongued underdeck. God’s language
is foreign both on sea and inland,
his consonants gold clicks and vowels English.
What we no longer hear or care to know—
how sharks once followed the salted blood
trails of boats across the ocean—
what is devoured in bolt.
3 “The slave’s deadly contact with the fermentation and lye application process that transforms the plant (indican C14H17O6) into the commodity dye (indigo C16H10N2O2), rendering it an exchangeable product that can be given measurable and nominal value in dollars.” - Tiffany Jeannette King from In the Clearing: Black Females Bodies, Space and Settler Colonial Landscapes.
Contributor Notes
Jasmine Elizabeth Smith (she/her) is a Black poet from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She received her MFA in Poetry from the University of California in Riverside. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and a recipient of the Glucks Art Fellowship.
Jasmine Elizabeth’s poetic work is invested in the Diaspora of Black Americans in various historical contexts and eras. It has been featured in Black Renaissance Noir, POETRY, and Terrain’s Letter to America Anthology among others. She was finalist for the 2020 National Poetry Series, the Walt McDonald First Book Competition, and the 2019 Frontier Open.
She is the Poetry Editor and a Poetry Program Specialist for the Black Lights Art Collective and a co-host of the radio show Baby Poet. She currently teaches Language Arts and Creative writing in the Inland Empire of Southern California.
