People who fly, icarus and other dreams

When I think of flight, I think of myth—two myths in particular. The first is almost always Icarus, and how we humans must always fight that urge to fly too near the sun: and how a death is like a fading, like Icarus in reverse.
The second is the African-American legend of the “People Who Fly,” which dreamed a literal flight from slavery. These things are fluttering in my mind with every bird flight or plane roar—even invading my dreams and, so frequently, my poems.

WHAT RUNS DEEP

Last night,
I had a flying
dream.

One of those
endless fallings,
cliff dives—the ragged
rush of wind pouring
over the rind of me

like water over an apple’s skin,
fresh from the bough.

The clouds
drift like fresh
peach slices,

shaped in the crisp
cool breath of morning:

that puffed air, trailing
from rattling teeth.
In the night my bones

jangle, silver and copper
coins in the pocket of twilight—

but
dreamed air
is always effervescent,

alive and warm
with all the things
the mind won’t
leave for morning.