Archive > Vol. 10 no. 1
Christopher Bursk
Icarus
Veer. Swoop.
Dive.
Plummet.
Plunge. The limited vocabulary
of longing.
When does knowing
that what he wants
is impossible
ever keep a boy
from wanting it? Wings
Feathers
Light. It’s not the sun
that sends Icarus crashing,
but the weight
of all the ordinary
air on his shoulders, millions
of molecules
the vulgar
facts of chemistry, jealousies
of physics.
It’s not flight
he years for, as much as
the solicitude before
and after,
his father’s hopes for his soaring,
his father’s pity
for his fall, Daedalus
bending over Icarus
as if a boy’s body
was meant for more
than just taking out the trash
or kicking a soccer ball,
the man’s hands
on the boy’s shoulder blades,
just under
the boy’s arms
stitching wings
to the wings
on the boy’s back.