Old Man Icarus
       

Impetuous boy trapped in an old man's body,
he recalls in a flash the alluring dazzle of height,
the pungent burning wax, the tightly meshed
feathers scattering, and the stomach-churning
headfirst fall—as he carefully navigates
a step's descent from the high curb to the street.
Later, he sits on a bench in the park and flicks
a crumb at his favorite ground-hugging urban bird

and feels himself a crumb left over from myth,
humble and real, like a meager pellet of bread.
Surprising survivor—a passing boat, too minor
to be in the story, rescued the boy who'd tumbled
out of legend into the random world,
leaving the indelible streak of his fall
as an instant signature and perpetual lesson.

In dreams that dizzy fall dissolves to the spin
of a record on which his father performs an aria
of incitements and cautions: Be passionate, but fear
the sun, great heights, memory—all the spavining
phobias caught up in the song, melodic
lesson incised by the smell of melting wax.

On a cedar-perfumed porch, he inhabits a rocking
chair, the one with a scorched wing attached
on either side—yes, he saved these when
the good fishermen hauled him, half dead, out of
the sea. Blackened, dear, bitter mementos.

Rocking, he feels he is migrating in his chair
over a vast sea, father in the lead
again, ingenious dot on the horizon,
busy inventing more and more vacancy.

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Copyright © 2020 Philip Fried All rights reserved
from Pembroke Magazine
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission