Icarus

by Rebecca Baggett

The story is so simple

really. Imagine

yourself gifted with wings,

every child's sleeping

and waking dream, imagine

that you could defy

that force dragging us all

to heel, imagine every sweet safe

green harbor below, laid out

for your choosing

like candies in their box.

Then imagine that one

gold coin, that fierce and pulsing

point around which worlds dance,

imagine the gentleness below

and that wildness above, imagine

that something in you echoed

to the leaping of its flames,

imagine how its one question

beat in your veins, how you saw

with perfect clarity that moment

in which each of us chooses,

forever. Imagine that voice

far below crying: Come

back Come back

About the Author:
Rebecca Baggett's first chapbook collection, Still Life with Children, won the 1995 National Looking Glass Chapbook Competition and was published in 1996 by Pudding House Publications. Her second collection, Rebecca Baggett: Greatest Hits, appeared in 2001, also from Pudding House. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including New England Review, North American Review, Ms., and Utne Reader. She lives in Athens, GA and works at the University of Georgia as an academic advisor for the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Copyright © 2004 by Rebecca Baggett. This poem first appeared in Poetry East and may not be reproduced in any form without the author’s express written permission.