For One Brief Moment of Timeless Suspension, by Jackie Langetieg

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1558. Possibly a copy by unknown artist of lost original.

​I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Jack Gilbert

For One Brief Moment of Timeless Suspension
 
I yearn to feel again the wind through my hair,
the grip of the bar and the cool steel in my hands 
as I push forward off the ledge swinging 
forward and back.
                                                                                                           
After doing two flips I am filled with the confidence
of my body in the air, moving as if Icarus is my teacher
whispering in my ear the prize of catching the bar
coming toward me. He tells me how to avoid falling, 
 
how he learned that although most people
ignored him or thought him foolish, he added a step
for man to fly unfettered by machines with only
a pillowing current of air on which to lie.

​I feel the excitement of the audience, the small boys
and girls who believe in magic and my ability
to challenge gravity through speed and strong hands,
to finish the promise of the next move,  
 
the empty bar swinging toward me begging my grip,
to take their strong slick bodies with me in the air.
Youth and danger written by the spheres to frighten
their parents and thrill their friends.
 
But coming toward me, my final flip over, belly on the bar
the push and diving through my personal air, the thrill 
of pure flight, no net, no helping hands, sailing
toward my finish, clasping the cool steel of home.

Jackie Langetieg

​Jackie Langetieg has published poems in literary magazines: Verse Wisconsin, The Ekphrastic Review, Bramble Blue Heron Review. She’s won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She is a regular contributor to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. She has written five books of poems,  including Letter to My Daughter and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold.