Midas
by Naro Alonzo
Mother, gold digger of scorched rice, sleep-
sand, overripe banana, coca-cola bottled gasoline,
moonlight tests your fingers positive for
heavy metals, men of iron fists armed
with gold rings, you who found them a delicacy
but believed you could carve bare handed
through the thorn and toughness, taste
a durian’s many hearts. You’ve always loved
to scavenge bones, content with crumbs,
how many times you cracked open sea urchins
mining their golden sex leaving behind empty shells
to the sea, become sand that you would sift
for glitter with a winnowing basket.
Mother, gold digger of treasure hunters, pawn-
shops, fish sauce, betadine on shallow wounds,
beware of fool’s gold in cigarette-stained teeth promising
land pregnant with Yamashita’s gold and honeyed
cathedrals, necklace undressed to tin in your neck
that you still kiss, rust flavored lips on my forehead.
Mother, gold digger of thrice-used oil, crispy
pata, Joy dishwashing liquid, your body hardening
from their touch, how to convince you there is gold
that sings, not in earth but beneath the eyelids
in a blackout. Our house of light where karaoke songs
run off like heat for we have no need for walls,
where the closest gold I can hold is the shine
of your stretch marks, gold wept in a bedpan
which I pour in the ceramic kiln. Your womb gone
for good. Glory of stitches with nothing to hide,
stiff with God, body hardly touched hard by you
like a rosary bead skipped after decades held
onto. Gold digger of frayed brooms, dried fish,
old chopping boards, 3 o’clock prayers, let me
slow dance you, let me steady your spine
as we leave a trail of gold hairs turning ash in
twilight’s blues. Mother of mosquito coil
tongue tips, crunched leaves, rooster’s closed beak
on the edge of a nipa-thatched roof, still
clock arms, how much do we have left to lose?
Raised in Davao, Naro Alonzo is studying to become a clinical psychologist at the University of the Philippines - Diliman. Their poems have been published or are forthcoming in Busilak: New LGBTQ Poetry from the Philippines and Tingle Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writing. They are also a proud talahiban-fellow of the 1st National LGBTQ+ Writers Workshop (https://www.pinoylgbtq.com/).