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POEM xii.
Icarus had a favourite apple tree back home. Not because its fruit was the sweetest out of all the other trees, or because it was so tall and grand that its branches touched the sky. It was the opposite, in fact. The tree was close to dying, brittle and rigid. From it hung two delicate ropes, a creaking swing attached to them.
On cooler days, a brisk wind would rustle the frail leaves hanging stubbornly onto the tree. Icarus would cling onto the frayed ropes with small hands, the scratchy texture rough against his soft skin. He can still remember the way that crooked swing would creak and groan beneath his weight, wobbling whenever he clambered on.
Back then, his legs were too short to do anything other than rock him back and forth on the swing. Still, he would look up at the thin branches that spread overhead, in the parting spaces where the sky would peak through the cracks.
The sunlight would splinter through, and Icarus would often imagine that if he swung high enough he could touch those bright spots. The tips of his fingers would graze the sun and when he fell back down then he could brag that he had spun the wheel of Apollo's burning chariot.
But that was so long ago. Icarus had not tasted the burn of those falling heights since now, where once more he fell, earthborn, and bound to be embraced by something far more love-less than that old wooden swing.
And where was Ambrose in all this? Where was his little brother?
Rosie would always be there with Icarus, in the garden, beneath the tree. Together, they'd run through the orchards and feast greedily on its fruit. Pomegranates and oranges and apples were always a delight. The saccharine juices would slip past their teeth and stain their chins, fingers sticky with the carrion of their revels.
Icarus hungered. The yearning itched beneath his skin, scratching and clawing at the tethers between his sinew.
"Don't you think it's weird?" he remembers Ambrose asking.
