This poem is called "Goldwasser."
My husband was given a bottle of Goldwasser
a year ago on his birthday.
And it's a clear liquid with little flecks
of real gold in it that when you shake, come out of solution.
And I knew that there was a poem in it.
And I wouldn't let him open it and drink it until I wrote it.
And it took me almost a whole year.
And we had great celebratory binge of Goldwasser
a couple of weeks ago
The snow storm in this bottle is purest gold,
as if the ceiling of heaven were flaking down,
as if a gold bird trapped in the bottle
were beating its feathers against the glass.
I tip my head to drink, and my throat is flecked with gold.
My words become valuable.
They flash like the gleam of a gold-toothed smile.
And I am changed.
A tiny sun explodes behind each eye.
Its moats come tumbling down.
I drink.
While somewhere in Midas's kingdom,
a peasant plowing his necklace of earth
looks up to see an ordinary day of snow,
the flakes all newly minted and clinking as they fall.