THE PERIODIC TABLE OF POEMS: SINTERING: COBALT AND HER BLUE

Sintering: Cobalt and her blue
-the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by heat and/or pressure without melting it to the point of liquefaction.

Electrolyzing cobalt ions make steel alloy strong and hard.
In painting class, we stroked cobalt blue under eyes.
It is invisible ink reliable for penning messages to spies.
Cobalt-60 treatments burned the cancer of grandmother’s brain,
shattered consciousness, splintered family, my mother bereft.
Cobalt looks like barnacles when separated and sintered.
Named for kolbald, the German word for goblin, loved for China’s blue,
the intensity of King Tut’s eye, needed to keep humans alive.
Cobalt is key to B-twelve, a builder of blood, preventer of pernicious
anemia. Too much and you die. Use it right, you can paint the sky.

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Created at Spark Central in 2016.