Song of the wings of Icarus

Ill-forgotten amongst the tales of men, that measure
death as loss, is a cycle of substances – their union as fated

as it is just. We are stolen and collaged,
from our birds, bees, and Gods, to serve a father and son

who think conquering the heavens is a matter of tools.
Rebirthed, we cling to his alveolate body and cut through

the firmament, bearing the sins of mortal hands. The sure
expanse grows larger behind him, and the sun, his lover, gets closer.

Blinded by where they may lead, how often we forget
that the things we carry, carry us. As his lust rises and burns

within him, we embrace the heat as our own; good God,
good riddance of this farcical birth – as if the sum of our parts

could ever make us whole. When finally man and material are one
with salt, sea, and silt, they call it a calamity; a cautionary tale

of lust, pride, and naïveté. But we know all things must fuse with
Creation and the sacred place where hubris dissolves is no tragedy.

Ariel

All songs of loss, beauty,
and grief is art; until the body
carries half-burnt ash stubs
and feet walk, bare on grey
marble to turn
the music off. In the days
of Ted’s lies, I tried to kill
the pain in me but it was
his leaving that made me
Lady Lazarus. He doesn’t mean
to preach silence
or death, I’m sure – men have a way
of deigning justice
and absolving you
of their sins, in a way that makes
intent obsolete – but gliding
three inches above the ground,
in the air of our most impassioned
regret, is the strangulated neck
of my voice and breath.
When you ask of my story, (ask him,
my curse, he is
the only one who knows), he will
tell you his own. In no other
species, are mates murderers
or sex violence, so perhaps you
won’t believe any of it. There was
a time, I would have refused
to perish at hands not my own,
but gentle, my friend, gentle
with the gasp escaping
your slant fingers around my neck –
your lie is yet to break my heart.

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