Member-only story
POETRY
Golden
We found one on the Turquoise Trail
in the land of enchantment, a
little place maybe not even
with a name sign, just a sign not
to photograph the artwork
without permission, bottle trees and
other bric a brac. Somebody’s little
cash cow.
There’s one in Colorado too,
according to the beer commercials
In the US there’s at least
a baker’s dozen worth of cities
King Midas would have loved
(In San Fran there’s a bridge
across a promising neck of water
that must glitter like preciousness
itself)
Everywhere something’s gilded,
expensive: towns, highways, ratios.
Everywhere there’s a little guilty
forbidden throwback to our dalliance
with coated calves and the wicked
lure of mammon, in them there hills,
trickling down the mountainside
driving us further and further
away from home
