You want to make it about heat, but really, it’s the pressure that gets to me. That a spaceship has no shoulders. That it’s all just some melted wax sex-toy in open space. They named the thing Icarus, because someone obviously likes fucking with fate; flicking their lighter at the filling station. And it makes sense. Mythology got us into this; a parent urging you not to do thing X at this particular time Y because: fire, further, father, sun. And so, you do X. Of course. And then you understand something slow; heat-death; cold confusion. How a forest could fly right by. Oxygen as open container spilling as you sway. We pay for the world in flesh. Firstlings in the flames. A funeral should always begin or end with a feast, if for no other reason than the alliteration. You need to understand: all immolation is, by definition, sacrifice. We can’t escape these etymologies. More confusing is the verb molere: to grind. But maybe the world is just trying to tell us about the burnt lubrication in the gears; desiccation in the downy yellow violets. They were my favorite, you know, before the snow. Birds, too. I loved them. I loved that something, anything, so completely owned the sky before men decided to fly.
from Poetry Northwest WEBMore by Matthew Minicucci from the library
Copyright © Matthew Minicucci
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.