they bent over lead’s
heavy spirit of illness,
asking it to be gold,
the lord from humble beginnings.
And the mad soul of mercury
fell through their hands
through settled floors
and came to rest
silver and deadly
in a hidden corner
where it would grow.
Gold was the property
that could take sickness out
from lead.
It was fire
held still.
At night
they lifted the glass
of black grapes
and sugar to their lips
and drank the flaked gold
suspended in wine
like sparks of fire,
then watched it fall
like fool’s gold
to the bottom of a pond.
Yesterday, my father behind a curtain
in the sick ward
heard a doctor
tell a man where the knife
would cut flesh.
Listen, my father said,
that man is saying a poem.
No, he’s telling a story.
No, I believe
he is reading from a magical book.
But he was only a man
talking to iron,
willing it to be gold.
If it had worked
we would kneel down before it
and live forever,
all base metals
in ceremonial fire.