ICARUS IN REVERSE

I want to be impressive 

and say I met a mountain once,

or a pyramid, or the desert -

but the truth is the sea scares me 

and the only landscape I know 

lies beneath me; 

my bed. My panicked heart. 

I iron over my panicked heart,

flat as sheets of hair

you can buy these days, and

attach, like a doll’s accessory 

to your own bemused scalp -

whose stories have crossed rivers 

you’ll never know.

Be sure there was sadness there,

you’ll never know.

No one parts with their hair 

when it ripples freely; freedom 

was paid in the sacrifice. Who

pockets the coins of gold

in the temples of our prayers?

The first women who wrote poetry 

were nuns, some say. But the 

first woman was earth, was sea,

was fire flooding air, is still

every tree. I want to be impressive?

Why? Every tiny seed is me.

The sorrow is I forget my wings 

and falling, fail to rescue me. 

(Images: via Lucy Campbell art on instagram After Bruegel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

Participating in DVerse Poets Open Link night