Amateur Icarus by Marcus Goodyear

The moon is a glowing white ear,

passing between gingerbread houses

where wasps build their paper hexes.

You are not here so it can’t be changing

for us, this celestial cochlea and canal

trained at the earth teaching me to listen

when your phone rings and rings its robotic no.

Less sprint than marathon, these past six days

wear the moon thin, and I am a sheet

of buzzing hive packed around pupae

that will tear through me transformed.

Shed all stings you flying things.

Hooked moon, thinner still, from ear

to scythe, Your reflected shine can’t

bring me home before my time.

Marcus Goodyear is an editor and writer living in the Texas hill country with his wife and two children. He is an avid community theater supporter and coaches a middle school robotics team.