Evanescence

The melting point of gold is 1064°C.
It peels her flesh like the stovetop did,
or her mother’s clothing iron;
viscid like resin against her skin
and hotter than molten rock.
Too stern-tongued to liquefy
so she lets the burns go septic
until the flood distorts her features,
melts her into a stream of ash,
slipping down the drain–

The boiling point of gold is 2807°C.
She once thought she’d end up dressed in uranium;
she would erupt in an inferno,
cloud the stratosphere with smoke,
a spectacle whose name is etched on history.
But gold has mastered the art of coercion
and now she is intimate with vanishing.