Untitled (Gold Dust)

I showed him my fingertips

Covered in glittering dust

Remnants from my efforts to clean the rock collection

That sits on my shelf

Gathering decay and memories

 

And I asked him

Do you know how to pan for gold?

I'd told him before so I shouldn't have asked

But I wanted us to remember together

So I could, through him, remember my father

Telling me how the gold is heavier

And sinks deep

Settling into the grooves when everything else doesn't

When all the lighter things move on

Washing away with the water

Though 

I knew the shimmering flakes

Among the dust and cat fur

Were really only mica

The antibiotic I've been taking

For the unnamed rot growing inside me

Leaves my piss more yellow than those gently shining shards

It’s the whole reason I'm cleaning anything

This desperate but unbelieving hope

That I can scrub away this sickness

 

So that maybe when the morning finds me

I can leave it behind

 

Like waking from a dream

So it wasn't like I thought

I was showing him something special

I really just needed

A small bit of magic dredged up from the depths

Something sunk into the folds

Something with weight

Something special that I could show him