Tripp Crouse

Lady Icarus

I’ve written you so many words, letters 
and poems—let me now write your epitaph. 

Arrogant, ravening and rook-tongued,
preen wings of wax and raven feathers,
glamorous notched arrows of midnight,
charred barbwire like metal thorns
adorn urban battlements burned,
each sharp tine dressed with hearts
pierced, victims of the predatory 
Shrike—no morsel of love, 
instead abandoned emotions, 
honor badges amid trophy kills, 
a black bird mask cracked
hinting at your moon face beneath,
hallow bone breast, young chicks
gorged on regurgitate, plumped bellies 
with mice who couldn’t leave 
well-enough alone,
peck apart the scarab beetle
for the tender meat protected
under carapace and scabbed wounds.

Descend now, spiral, plummet,
pulling everyone else earthbound
at your hand, a meteoric fall, 
a lark loosed from her cage, 
wings clipped. 

Cacophonous screams in suicide nights, 
and this her eulogy (a waste of words, I’m sure): 

Below, 
shattered into concrete, limbs twisted,
an elaborate splatter pattern
of crimson and gray matter, 
bowels blown open, rib cage fractured
into tiny splinters.

It wasn’t love that drove Lady Icarus
mad: the flower thought she could fly. 

If I had one wish it would be that 
you never took that precipitous step, 
the drop to your death, that your
fabricated wings held you aloft. 
But never bet on a rook to heed
warnings, and like your namesake, 
flew too close to the flames in the sky.

*Note: This work borrows lines from Sylvia Plath & Charles Bukowski.

tripp j crouse (they/them) is niizh manidoowag (Two-Spirit) Ojibwe. they write poetry and perform spoken word. Tripp serves as a poetry reader for Anomalous Press, or ANMLY, and has poetry published or forthcoming in The Yellow Medicine Review, oddball magazine, Grassroots, Zygote in My Coffee, Words & Whispers, beestung and Rising Phoenix Review. Originally from the Midwest, tripp now calls Dzantik'i Heeni (Juneau, Alaska) home.