The Rumour of Icarus

Icarus—
there is a rumour that your father killed you, that
he bent your wings until they broke and then
told you, "Fly."
If this rumour is true, then it lives in the throats of
those fragile boys who wear your death like Cain's mark,
whose tender hands split like swollen tomatoes when
they pluck strangled seabirds, whose
arms slump beneath the weight of their father's genius.
And this rumour lives on
the under-skin of their eyelids so that when they die
or simply sleep
they dream of their fathers
or maybe just of Daedalus, standing with
his hands full of feathers and wax,
their blood-flecked down under his fingernails.

your face is gone, icarus, you are a warning & a tragedy &
the patron saint of boys who will not listen but also you are a god, icarus,
a god to these boys and still, when you fell—
said Bruegel in oils, Auden and Williams in verse—
no one gave a damn.

But Icarus—
they also say that your father strained the sunlight into an amphora
and told you, "Drink," as he poured Helios
down your throat.
And if what they say is true, then those fragile boys,
wearing your death like an aureole or maybe a crown of thorns
will stumble to bed wrecked and sobbing
and on the fevered underside of their eyelids
they dream of themselves
or maybe just of you, wandering drunk up to heaven.
Phaeton caught you in his wheels and
this may be why you both are dead.
But sometimes they say that the wings ensorcelled Daedalus, that
he simply forgot you and left.
And that is why you fell. Is this true?
These boys do not have much time and they need to know.