Club Icarus
by Matt W. Miller

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We’re no more than a few silver
seconds in the air when that winged
and cocky boy gets sucked
into a turbine sparking off a fire
that rips the starboard wing
away from the fuselage, shucking
passengers out and raining
us over Northern California, dozens
of us dropping towards the bay
and you can imagine the screams,
I’m sure, the prayers cast up
then down the twirling sky,
and yet here’s my daughter
laughing the whole way
down, her yellow hair whipping
around her first teeth smile
as she titters at the tilted
wonder of what was happening,
rolling airborne over and over,
as we all drop like sacks of wet
clay and for a second I want to snag
her, to show her how frightened
she should be, so I can hug
her safe one last time, but the way
she looks laughing I just can’t
and so as the brick of the bay
comes up to kiss my back I watch
my little girl giggling, grinning
floppy-cheeked into the wind
and then, damn, if I don’t see, right
before the world splits my sides,
wings like blades butterfly
from her back and lift her
laughing back into the blue.

"Club Icarus" by Matt W. Miller, from CLUB ICARUS by Matt W. Miller, copyright © 2013 University of North Texas Press. Used by permission of University of North Texas Press.