Icarus
       

I keep forgetting things.
I might be the first boy in recorded history
to have a learning disability.

My father who built the Labyrinth
to resemble the pathways of the brain
was disappointed I didn't have his talent.

It's not easy being a famous failure.
Running off the cliff, I followed Daedalus.
We lifted like gulls— Crete falling away below us.

The higher a person flies, the colder the air gets.
It makes little sense that the beeswax
holding the feathers melted.

All the storytellers are wrong.
I flew so high the wax became brittle,
began to flake like old paint.

That is when I spiraled into the sea,
forever drowning
in the imaginations of men.

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Copyright © 2021 Mark Thalman All rights reserved
from The Peasant Dance
Cherry Grove Collections
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission