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.