Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

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How could I have failed you like this?

The narrator asks

The object. The object is a box

Of ashes. How could I not have saved you,

A boy made of bone and blood. A boy

Made of a mind. Of years. A hand

And paint on canvas. A marble carving.

How can I not reach where you are

And pull you back. How can I be

And you not. You’re forever on the platform

Seeing the pattern of the train door closing.

Then the silver streak of me leaving.

What train was it? The number six.

What day was it? Wednesday.

We had both admired the miniature mosaics

Stuck on the wall of the Met.

That car should be forever sealed in amber.

That dolorous day should be forever

Embedded in amber.

In garnet. In amber. In opal. In order

To keep going on. And how can it be

That this means nothing to anyone but me now.

–Mary Jo Bang

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