Golden Poem by Michael Timothy Rose

If a moment were defined by tears,
this had none,
but my sorrows and my joy,
my reluctance to cry.

If I had cried,
if I had squinted even one
trickling tear along my cheek,
I would have cried golden tear droplets
dropping at my chin as lead weights to the prison floor;
I would have cried golden tear droplets
like golden straw
spilling from the spindles of my
weary-wet eyes, tear droplets
that fell like angels
from my closed and crescented damn,
Tears that hung in the balance
of insanity and science, that forged a moment
defined astray from moments,
tear droplets forged by an alchemist.

I would love to think
of tear droplets turned to gold from moments,
or even moment changed from moment.

Though you cannot,
we were for a short while

of stone and of gold; I was stone, changed to gold, you made me- golden
if only for a moment, where I was
unquestionably happy. I was happy.