Two Poems After Icarus, by Sheri Doyle

The Fall of Icarus, by Odilon Redon (France) before 1916

  
Icarus Above Wall Street
 
Tangled in this shimmering cloak and sprawled
across a moment between ecstasy and the frenzy
of glimpsing my wings of wax melt, I fall
 
releasing my dreams as a cluster of peonies,
petals floating in air like lights in the club
the whole world blush with transiency
 
Have you seen the way ants circle the bulb
I’d rather imagine the way it seems
the peony needs the ant to open the nub
 
The sun burns a hole in the stitch at the seam
yet even as I fall, I circle my dream
 

The Fall of Icarus, by Jacob Peter Gowy (Flanders) 1637

Daedalus Calls Out
 
Son, I called out, but it was too late, you started to fall
much sooner than this—I was late to hockey practice,
to your birth, I missed your first word, first steps, first
fist fight, that night you came up behind me to give
me a hug. I’d fallen asleep, startled awake at your touch,
the glow of the television burning my eyes like light
from gunfire down in that dark trench, your arms around
my shoulders disappearing, so I missed the chance
to hug you back, you ran out the front door
 
I was already dreaming we were running together,
not apart, toward the same sun, toward the same light
 
Sheri Doyle
 
Sheri Doyle is a poet living on the treaty lands of the Six Nations of the Grand River within the Haldimand Tract. Her poems have appeared in literary publications, such as The Antigonish Review, untethered magazine, and Rhapsody Anthology. Her chapbook A Dress Made from Light was published by Vocamus Press in 2022. A perfect day includes coffee, conversation, reading, writing, music, and walking—probably in that order.