Carol Ann Duffy, a wonderful poet, is also a playwright. She wrote monologs in the voices of the wives of famous men.
I love “Mrs Midas,” the story of the man with the golden touch as told by his wife.
Mrs. Midas sees her husband in the garden and gradually realizes what’s going on.
And then he plucked
a pear from a branch – we grew Fondante d’Automne –
and it sat in his palm, like a lightbulb. On.
I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?
Her suspicion grows.
He came into the house. The doorknobs gleamed.
The epiphany hit her as Midas was trying to drink some wine.
It was then that I started to scream. He sank to his knees.
After we’d both calmed down, I finished the wine
on my own, hearing him out. I made him sit
on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself.
I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone.
The toilet I didn’t mind.
The enormity of what he’d done set in. And of course it’s all his fault. Male explanations involving the male decision-making process generally don’t help.
I should know that by now. When I need a reminder, this poem helps.
• Source: Carol Ann Duffy’s monologs were collected in The World’s Wife in 1999. “Mrs. Midas” is available through the Scottish Poetry Library:
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