Icarus’ sister exists only in living stone,
the watchful daughter of the craftsman
in the middle of his own labyrinth,
once his prized creation, placed in
the prime line of his drafts, design, eye
of his genius, now a relic existing
in a dusty nowhere cobweb corner
stained with Minotaur blood,
watching her fleshy father
falteringly stitch wax, feathers, twigs
to a frame that could not
take the water and sun of every day birds,
not even the weight of a son’s pride
who complacently raveled and unraveled
his father’s clew, half hearing  cautions,  
his mind flapping beyond the planets.

She cried over how Daedalus could
dote over such mortal error
while she exists in perfect neglect,
cried a tear turned prayer that
mixed with the dust, the murderous
blood crusting the rusty teeth of Perdix’s saw,
knowing hence  that men **** their best dreams,
fear the successful  flight of  their ideas, and  
that her faith, trust now forever lived with the gods.

Hephaestus heard her and bellowed her mind,
taught her to seek inspiration in the rejected
metal slivers that littered the workshop
like the sand of Naxos where Theseus
left Ariadne in her abandoned dreams.

In the cry of that other lost daughter
she heard the sound of ascent,
saw father and son in erratic flight
and followed to the top of the labyrinth
to watch two glints align in descent
and one splash into the sea.

Graced with the knowledge
that forbearers would
name the waters below for this fool,
she deposited Icarus in their father’s arms,
and flew away on brass wings of her own design,
wingtips skipping waves, seeking the sun.

Wings,
soft, feathery, downy,
wings,
made for flight,
Forged for a fight,
wings,
scarred, ******, broken,
Wings,
---
Wingtips press against the soil,
Earthen, Brown,
the power of the Earth,
shared to me,
Ritual, complete,
I feel it all,
rich power,
---
Graceful wingtips,
trailing crimson,
across innocent marble floors,
oh how imbued with guilt,
they drag,

You're changing this cocoon heart
The butterflies are too big for my stomach
so they venture to the ends of my being
I’m growing wingtips for fingertips that flutter when you laugh
And in the moments I make your eyes smile, I fly
All the while, unraveling the most fragile strands of myself
Like string simply because
The only thing holding me is your hands

I am a kite
I ascend to the top of the universe with mirth, unafraid of falling,
And fall, I do
I fall over and over again every time your cheeks blush
And every time you bring me back down to Earth
You bring me in, and you hold me close
And what puts my mind at ease is
Our ribs are starting to fit together like puzzle pieces
Our hearts are fusing like science I can’t comprehend,
But if God was a card dealer, I’d understand, because
God dealt me the very,
Very best hands

Your hands
that shock mine every time I touch them
And when that happens we never fail to search
For the sparks in each other’s eyes
We peer into each other’s souls
Finding atoms that fizz like fireworks
I am finding God in your electricity
We hold still for the Lord
But absolutely nothing about this is static

I am the ocean
There is more life swimming inside of me than anyone’s ever seen
And somehow you are still more astonishing
You are the moon
From dust, God made you to hold me
You push and pull me
Like tides, gently rocking me to sleep
We are standing still
But love is not something we can stop if we squeeze

Like trying to catch rivers in our bare hands
We’re finding it more enchanting to catch each other’s raindrops on our tongues
Because we are water cycles, and some days
We are drenched in this love
Finding it ironic how our torrential downpours only lift us up
So, we hold hands
Run through the rain
And know that no matter how hard we squeeze
It will never stop

I want to go dancing
I want my feet to sing louder than my voice
I want them to sing in tune with the colors your lips make when you sing
Because I’m so close to colorblind that the rest of my senses are heightened
And nothing tastes sweeter than the
Rainbows you whisper on my eardrums

But I want to feel softer than this
I want to touch subtler than two magnets never ever can
But still have the same fervor
I want our ribs to feel less like rickety fences
And more like toy xylophones
Or the color spectrum

So one day we’ll have mapped out each other’s blues
And we can truly say, we’re on the same wavelength
So that one day,
Our hearts will beat lullabies on our skeletons,
Reminding us even the hard things in life can be beautiful
If we let it

I know that fuzzy feels cozy
And change can be crippling
But as I dream stars through the silk sheets
I hold your hand
And pray you won't supernova in the morning

and there i was.
all of 3 and a half,
draped in hopping silhouettes;
neck deep in swaying hips
and blaring tunes
tied to kick drums.
dramatic rim taps
and wingtips cluttered
cross the wooden floor.
surrounded by tall men with
tall women whose heels
unforgivingly grazed
the groaning floor boards.
their gowns thick
as kitchen curtains
that seemed to flutter
like butterflies in hurricanes.

i heard the summer whisper;
her hums sweetly floating
through grand windows
tall as ten of me;
tasting the rhythm
with her tongue,
she blew a cool sigh;
flooding the steaming stew
of old souls with young bones.
sunk real deep between
4 counts and hi hats
to twirl her way
into their step;
a type of swing
'cept it had a bounce to it
like steeple chasers.
those ladies with copper faces
and stone seasoned roots
with joints as old as time
played tag with the down beat.
those daddys dodging
in their tailoreds
like taxis in traffic;
toxic with a plague of ghouls
like the Count, King Cole
and Billie, Fitzgerald, Gillespie.

Then,
just as the summer silenced her hiss,
just as the sun
dug its heels into the dirt,
making its last ditch efforts
to remain present,
dusk untied its bows;
unwrapping a gift like glory.
and we were bathed in glory
that laughed like lovers
and kissed like dogs.
it drenched us in sloppy showers
glistening gold like sweat.
yet still,
we emerged refreshed.
so as the night
began its usual
chocking down of day
and good afternoons
cacooned into goodevenings,
i stood there;

all of 3 years old.
surrounded by silhouttes
that could only belong
to old souls with young bones
who belittled big bands
with their own vibrations;
those copper ladies
and skyscraper sized fathers
in tailored suits
who two stepped
to both sunsets and groove
grew into shadows.
and i stood in the midst of
those dimmed stars;
stamina riddled.
knowing that as
a summer day died,
a summer night
had only just begun.

Blackened bird upon my brow;
Corvus Christi on my crown:

Could there be, oh could there be
Balm, sweet Balm in Galilee
Wild Roses grown in Gilead
White Daffodils on Sharon's sea . . .

The shores, the shores of Sharon's sea:
wingtips lapping cedar beams
leave no trail of murrey'd deeds;
tapping shoulders with your blades
rustling in the hollow reeds,
among the Seals of Solomon
Two Lovers, lost in Lebanon,
rose, to where the Stars of David bloom --

She in gules and He in vert . . .

Sable Bird upon our brows;
Corvus Christi on our crowns.

I tried on several of my father’s
old Brooks Brother suits
just before his funeral,
trying to save myself the expense
of an outfit I didn't need.  

Each was too tight on the collars.
too short on the sleeves, each
crotch inseam strangled my manhood.
I had outgrown them all.

Almost all of it will go to Goodwill-
except maybe for those old coal wingtips,
(still in their slightly battered but original box)
heels and soles worn down from hospital rounds,
the leathers evenly laced, spit and
polished to a proper navy shine,
solid and smooth, enough to go from
monolithic to Marley vinyl
without missing a beat.

I could almost hear “The Great Pretender”
play as he glided my future mom
(literally,”The Beauty Queen of Fulton Burrough”)
across the ballroom floor, and then,
suddenly stop, and leave her,
as the hospital pager buzzed on his belt.

All my father- a short, balding but
approachable looking guy, with the
devil’s goatee- ever needed to win
my mother over, was Nat King Cole.
What he left her with, was Harry Belafonte
swooning his existential sorrows out to her-
“Day-o, midnight come and I want to go home.”

I smelled the stale odor of talc
distinguishing itself from moth *****,
and was tempted to slip them on,
but figured the cost to resole them
wouldn't be worth the price. Besides,
that oxblood polish would be too hard
to find.  I left them there for the next
tenant to decide their fate.

My mother’s second cousin
went to a fine university,
majored in anthropology,
and wore Italian wingtips
and a black fedora pulled
down rakishly over one eye.

I hear he was a handsome man.

He joined Toastmasters
and spoke extemporaneously
to small crowds of strangers.

He packed a leatherette
bag and went bowling
every other Sunday night.

He took his children camping
and taught them to catch a fire
with magnesium and tinder.

He mowed the lawn
with lapidary precision;
neighbors admired
his yard: brilliant green,
sharp as an emerald.

He played the spinet piano
in the hallway after dinner,
the metronome clicking out time.

His black suits—
immaculate skins
of a domesticated
creature—smelled
of cigarette smoke
and fountain pen ink.

But, according to my mother,
something went wrong along the way.
He began to hunger for something that clawed
just beyond the evenly trimmed hedgerows.

He smiled at night, listening
to malevolent creatures leaping
from rooftop to rooftop.

He began to hate his wife’s
brown dresses: brown is
the color of compromise,
he seethed to himself.

His voice became quieter;
bowling became a bother.

Eventually,
he left his fedora hanging
on the coat rack in the hall.
His neglected wingtips gathered
dust in the bedroom closet.
The pockets of his favorite suits
swelled with cryptic notes, written
to himself with stolen fountain pens.

One night, when the children were sleeping,
he set the table and killed his wife with a spoon.

I hear he was a handsome man.