Icarian
Icarian
by Amy McCann
Gulls puncture the blue between
kites: translucent, cross-boned,
cellophane animals leashed
to each child’s wrist.
Some unusual flyers: octopus,
brontosaur. A man taking Polaroids
alternates between his stumbling
toddler and a sea star
suckling basalt. The water endless
tics, trinkets of light. I soothe my palm
over sand, trying to erase
any evidence of our being
terrestrial. Matted feathers
barb the surface, nib my palm.
O cosseter, O caravel! I am fast
bound for far shores, already failing
to find the desired—anise,
apricots impossible in this soil.
As always, I’ll spend tonight chastely
kissing our limitations, bunked
beside you, a board braced between
our radiant groins, my affection
folding into itself, into something
engineered to be unlikely
yet airborne—diamonds of tissue,
tape, and string, delicate
harness for the invisible,
variable currents. Beautiful
impediment. Everything given,
one way or another, a working wing.
Cool. I read this as parents having to sublimate their sexual desires for one another into flying kites with their kids. Contrasts between sky and land, avian and earthly pursuits persist throughout the poem, interestingly crashing earthbound adult desires into juvenile airborne yearnings–the reverse of Icarus flying too close to the sun. Yet this “beautiful impediment” works for them, if only on one “wing.”