Wingless

Daedaleus never understood the danger of joy.
He was imprisoned for this misunderstanding,
for making a device for the Queen's pleasure
when the King has ceased to please her.

The architects of pleasure are wingless
and short-sighted. The waxy geometry
of flight does not account for the angle
of wind against the skin or the sum

of sunlight. Logarithms of desire,
the delirious arithmetics of living,
dividing the sky between the sun
which will devour all our days

and the cold, blue sea. We fly akimbo
skimming the irreconcilable balance,
neither bird or fish enough to navigate
those distances. When I fall (and I will

fall) I know my father will fly on
without me. There are more sons
to be fathered on an unarrived shore.
Tomorrow is a margin in a ledger.