I Think About Icarus

Art by Collin Bittner (current issue)

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        When I sit with my guys, sometimes we argue, and today we’re arguing about the white man from South Africa and some mention that his thumb was tucked and some mention the thud the microphone picked up when the hand pounded the chest and some argue if the gesture more closely resembled a Roman salute than the gesture he’s accused of, and I think about Icarus when weeks ago I swiped through images of stickers on electric vehicles that explain to those trailing behind how they bought their vehicles “before he went crazy” and they don’t read like apologies, and I explain how I have always stood my ground on the white man from South Africa and that if he should be known for anything it is falling upwards into oblivion so far no human could look down without falling, and I show them clips of his estimate on self-driving cars and how he said it would be operational by 2015 and by 2015 the estimate was 2017 and by 2018 it was by the end of the quarter and how we have watched this nursery rhyme lay each of its punchlines, and I think about Icarus when I think about the word “trickle” or “trickle down,” or simply how we have accepted subhuman wealth with open arms, and I wonder how much time is allotted to us to argue about something we saw together in full effect, and who, if anybody, talked to him before he built his wings? I think about that somebody handing Icarus the harsh reality. I picture the plunge of their heart scratching nearby organs, bearing witness to the blood, the amalgamation of feathers.