Poem: Michael Bazzett, “Icarus”

For Father’s Day, we bring you this new poem from contributor Michael Bazzett:

 

ICARUS

The wings were indeed a cunning invention,

not bird-like

as most supposed but sweeping and feather-light

with a clear

understanding of lift and drag.

Daedalus knew what was up.

There would be no white legs

          disappearing into green water

this time.

No, he would use woven hair

instead of wax and let

the lad get singed, if need be.

   Nothing like the acrid scent

of burning hair to pull the body of a boy

     back into himself.

Daedalus said the myth

would still prove useful.

           A bit more laconic, perhaps. Its heavy

hands now softened inside gloves.

              The two of them

would live

 

long enough to sit quietly through the evenings,

     watching swallows

looping manic over the pond

while they sipped their whiskey, without a word.

Michael Bazzett is the author of You Must Remember This, which received Milkweed’s 2014 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, Our Lands Are Not So Different (Horsethief Books 2017), and The Interrogation, which is forthcoming from Milkweed in October 2017.

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