Shelley Chernin at the Hessler Street Fair, 2012
photo by John Burroughs
Daedalus
Where to land? His child
drowned. He does not know
the dance, but flaps and flaps
tern-feathered arms. Reflexive
choreography. When the bit
of boy tripped and scraped a shin,
his father nestled him snug
to chest, to rise and fall
of breath. A clever dad,
to make his son a bit of bird,
a chance, a wish, a way
to fly by nets and mazes. At last
unfettered, the young man turned
and turned on phantom wings, danced
a solar tarantella into the sea.
Shoulders molt and still heart
beats and beats in search of home.
* * * * *
Shelley Chernin is a freelance writer and ukulele player. Her poems have appeared in Scrivener Creative Review, Rhapsoidia, Durable Goods, Big Bridge, What I Knew Before I Knew: Poems from the Pudding House Salon, the Heights Observer and the 2010 and 2011 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest anthologies. She was awarded 2nd Place in the 2011 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest, and the Akron Art Museum awarded her Honorable Mentions in their New Words Poetry Contest in 2009 and 2010. She is the author of The Vigil, published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2012.
“Daedalus” won an Honorable Mention in the Akron Art Museum’s New Words Poetry Contest in 2009, and was previously published at the Akron Art Museum’s website.