Icarus Laments

(For Bill Chisholm)

Thomas Lawrence Long

Beloved to you Phoebus Apollo

I give myself.

As a boy I played,

Innocent in your day’s eye 

While you warmed my gangly legs

And scattered sparks through downy hair.

But one morning after wrestling flesh in the agon

And slippery with sweat

Resting on the field

I felt a strange heat

And every bone, sinew, muscle stretched to reach it.

I, Icarus, give myself to you

Fickle Phoebus Apollo,

Fly to you in an arc

On wings of my father’s waxy artifice

Soar to your searing penetrating eye

To your fingers of flame.

Song-god sing away my longing

Sing away the pain of your probing

Brighter than the Great Obelisk.

Now I do not swim in air merely

But heat holds, lifts me,

Runs through my hair

Grabs the curves behind me,

Draws me nearer.

We dance, pause, pivot

On the keystone pinnacle of day’s arch.

Feathers fall away

Sweet cloudy beeswax 

Dribbles down my torso,

Down my thighs runs.

Phoebus

You are dimmer

Why a breeze,

Why does a chill pass my loins?