ICARUS

Your demise began early.

as it does for the majority
of us all . The world and its repeated histories,
the Braille of scars, wrong turns and cull-de sacs

From your perch, you watch
a cold blue smoke rise
on the other side
of the river, from an abandoned field, from
a thicket of sycamores

where a stag’s plaintive moan, runs up the hillside
to your feet.  You think
that it is always the same,  bound as you are,
to the weight – of things.

and maybe in the end it is only the birds that understand
what we are missing here on the ground.

Or not even the birds  but maybe the stars watching us
from so far away and for so long,

long before this demise, joyful when we simply take notice of them.

You laugh at yourself,  a second-hand  angel,  soul bare and drunk.

Too drunk again.  Standing, you pull hard on the leather straps
holding the wood and wax wings to your back

as the wind lifts up the smaller feathers
frayed around the wing tips.