“Mrs Midas” is a poem written by the contemporary Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, the former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. The poem alludes to the Greek myth of King Midas, who was granted a wish to have everything he touched turn to gold. The poem, however, tells this well-known story from the perspective of Midas’s wife, using humor and wit to explore the foolish nature of greed, the historical erasure of women’s experiences, and the consequences of selfishness within a relationship. “Mrs Midas” was included in Duffy’s 1999 collection The World’s Wife and reprinted in her New Selected Poems 1984-2004.
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It was late ...
... snapping a twig.
Now the garden ...
... in the tree?
He came into ...
... started to laugh.
I served up ...
... golden chalice, drank.
It was then ...
... believe my ears:
how he’d had ...
... smoking for good.
Separate beds. in ...
... work of art.
And who, when ...
... the streaming sun.
So he had ...
... off, then walking.
You knew you ...
... the last straw.
What gets me ...
... stopped me dead.
I miss most, ...
... skin, his touch.
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.