Daedalus’s Daughter

Katie Coakley

 

On the day Icarus

flew too high

            kissed the sun,

            fell full-frontal into infinite death,

            salty ocean arms

            a fragile concoction of wax and seagull feathers

 

I, sister forgotten,

            watched jealously,

            aching to stretch my wings

            soar into release.

 

His pride buoyed him higher than caution,

            melting the wax, loosing his mortality.

            Plunging towards the depths,

            gravity laughed in his ears.

 

I escaped a stone cell only

to land in a bar-less prison

            surrounded by

            squalling young ones.

            A boar in bed.

 

I remember the tangle of

            limb and string and feathers,

                        wishing to fly

                                    if only to fall.