Her Icarus

Her Icarus

As though he’d jumped too far from the swing

high as he could ride

and then

let

go

and it was all a blue blur

it was momentary

it was

fli-

ght

and then

a

tight

jerk

you know

how those certain songbirds

push

and

pause,

push

and pause

so sudden they’re just knives covered in sky

it’s just roof to birch

in one dip

of the tail

and two quick puffs –

                        or like the older boy

behind the shed

smoking

and his fanned

recoil

when he hear’s

his name

but this boy, the red gravel-rash apron his bare chest is, now it’s worse than that swing he fell from last year, that coming down flat or nearly and how some force kept pushing him until his cheeks, his neck and elbows, the obligatory knees—he looked like a bowl of cranberries whose white bottoms haven’t seen enough

                                                sun –

and she’s tweezed each piece of lake stone, bone over bone, out of his cheek and teeth, his groin and backside and she’s – well she’s not going to ask – she wants to see an almost awake boy, face and neck, almost the boy dragged across the bottom in the dark

the way he may have been pulled

across the sky

Icarus

sweet Icarus

just before the world started to melt

at this feet.