by Hilary King
who slipped into the empty workshop and gathered
feathers and bits of leather from the floor.
Callused from cooking and carrying, fetching
and mending, her hands could endure the sear
of wax, could wrestle leather into harnesses for wings.
Instead made for her mother a boy-shaped doll
soft with feathery fluff and heavy in wooden shoes
soled with flame-softened wax. Icarus’s mother
plants the small idol on the windowsill, and arm
around her daughter, laughs. He can’t leave us now.
Hilary King is a poet living in Northern California. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Ploughshares, Salamander, TAB, Belletrist, SWWIM, Fourth River, The Cortland Review, and other publications. She is the author of the book of poems, The Maid’s Car and is an editor for DMQ Review.
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