Member Poem

I.
Midas, I want to talk to you about it

I want to ask you

what is it like

to be able to turn everything around you into shimmer

and I want you to look at me

from across the room

tell me

it’s beautiful,

but it hurts.

II.
I was told

Please, be careful what you wish for

Imagine: the richest man in the world

who is nothing

without

touch

But if I had that power what would really change:

I couldn’t touch

anything

not food and

not others and

certainly not

myself

Or I would turn to gold

and that would be

far too much power

in one place.

III.
Imagine: two figures

stood in the middle of a room

One looking at the ground

One recoiled into herself

Imagine: a head of snakes

across from a hand of gold

Medusa and Midas:

rhythmic alliteration unto themselves

they look like the sound of certain demise

magical tragedy

What if they were in love

what would that be like

She: can’t look into his eyes

He: can’t touch her and so

I watch with one eye closed to imagine

what’s left at the end:

a woman of gold or a man of stone.

IV.
This one is for his daughter

because no one ever told me her story

While her father’s myth spread like

wildfire

like liquid gold melting

where was she

The internet tells me "the historical

value of gold was rooted in its relative rarity

and easy handling" and then

I found her in the story

What happened: her father attempted

embrace and turned his princess into

her crown

The internet tells me "gold

is the most malleable of all metals;

a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter"

she is gold now but she is not better for it

Imagine: we call her by her name-

she is Merigold
the internet tells me

"gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become transparent"

and I think you were.