“… I’ve always / felt like Icarus, a flaming ball of wax / and feather, not a beautiful boy falling out / of the sky, but a charred corpse, plummeting / to the ocean.” Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Can we talk about the wax? The way the wax
would have felt on his skin, slick
at the first signs of melting, a spreading
warmth that felt so good he flew closer
to the sun, the sensation a full body coating
of intoxicating heat, before the wax
began to burn, to cover him like napalm,
to coat his body in something like jet fuel
and feathers, consuming him as surely
as the coat Medea prepared for Jason’s bride.
I think my mother named me Jason
because she wanted me to live past the tragedies
she knew would be my lot, to keep going after
the bodies had piled up on stage, but I’ve always
felt like Icarus, a flaming ball of wax
and feather, not a beautiful boy falling out
of the sky, but a charred corpse, plummeting
to the ocean. I took the name Icarus
when I felt the wax begin to melt
on my skin. I’m not falling from the sky
just yet. The burn is still a spreading warmth.