Icarus was on his way to the sun
when a cloud swallowed him whole
it masticated him in cottony wetness
drowned him in fog humid stickiness
and for a moment, he forgot.
The ascendancy of youth
the natural challenge and taunt
of the emptiness above, a drive
to touch the vaulted blue ceiling-
for a moment, he forgot.
He was one with what ate him.
And he knew what it was to float.
-not fly, but float.
Hover, shift
shaped, shapeless
hungry above the contours of the world
until everything in him drooled to belong
again to earth's gravitational embrace.
All this, but for a moment.
Before he rebelled
found his skin
shook the dew off the wax and feathers.
He was different from the cloud
He was himself
and by his own power,
he would touch the sky.
Breaking the vague edges of silver and white
his form was hard and shadowed
against the brilliance of the sun
a bullet racing into the thinning freezing burning air.
The cloud, still with an aftertaste of
Icarus
shivered
and laughed.
It would taste the boy again,
later.
Salted by the sea.
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